Newly qualified therapist - lots of cancellations - any advice?
Good evening everyone
I finished an MA in May and graduated last month/registered with BACP. Feels great to have great to have gotten to this stage after a busy 3 years!
I've gone straight into a freelance contract with a small counselling organisation locally. I'd started as a voluntary placement and then once qualified switched to a paid position, which meant I was able to start getting paid straight away - all good.
But now I have the reality of non-student working. Of my 4 weekly clients 2 have just said they want to pause counselling due to outside factors and 2 have asked to go to fortnightly sessions. So now I'm down to one session a week, and feeling a bit demoralised.
The organisation have said that referrals/enquiries are typically down over the summer, and I've heard elsewhere that is true, and likely to pick up from September.
I'm sure this is a common theme and the fact I'm just starting out and have only a small number of clients makes these instences have more impact. And I know that the transitions/starts/stops of clients is going to be present through all this work.
Just wondered if others had/have similar experience and if you have any tips for how to manage this personally? Also any advice of things you wish you'd known/done at this early stage of work would be much appreciated.
Thank you.