By Jacqueline Kahn, BETD, BAI Reg
As a person, how do I feel about investing in my healing? As a healing practitioner, what do I perceive as my value for my time and service?
Our therapeutic healing journey can require a significant investment of time and money.
It can be as difficult for a healing practitioner to calculate their rate as it can be for a client to come to terms with spending money for help that offers no guarantees beyond the presence and time offered by the practitioner.
All of the factors to include in the process of determining how a healing practitioner’s value equates to money can feel bewildering. Plus, we may contend with a minefield of subconscious blocks of feeling worthy of receiving or feeling safe to give.
Healing practitioners most often enter their field of service following a sincere drive to help others. Sometimes their hardest task is to balance their giving nature in a way that ensures they earn enough for their own survival needs.
Self-employed practitioners have many costs to tend to sustain their business and lives. When calculating their session fees, they must consider:
Unpaid time for vacation, illness, pregnancy/birth, and bereavement.
The need to limit the number of clients they see in a week. The maximum recommended is twenty, though some will find their maximum to be ten or less, or more, depending on many factors
Repayment of loans or payment plans for training expenses
Continuing professional development expenses
Practice liability insurance
Professional membership and affiliation fees
Online and print advertising and directories costs
Information technology services
Cost of a website, online booking services, online payment services
Telecommunication costs
Data protection fees
Therapy space rental and utility costs.
Work-related travel expenditures.
Fees for continued personal therapy
Self-care routines that may include supplementation, high-quality foods to stay healthy, and expenses for some physical exercise training or courses
Average, appropriate prices for similar services offered in their location of practice or with the primary location of their clientele
This is only a basic list of the aspects and expenses of practice that a practitioner’s session fee must cover in relation to the number of clients a practitioner can see on a weekly or monthly basis, to determine an appropriate fee rate.
Other considerations for a practitioner when establishing value for services are:
The amount of training, qualifications, degrees, diplomas, or certifications held in relevance to their services
The frequency and amount of continued professional development engaged in
Whether or not their work is recognised by any professional qualifying bodies
The amount of experience in terms of practice hours or years, and the depth and range of experience throughout their training and career
The quality of life experiences and personal growth that has shaped their knowledge base for their career
Their established professional reputation, including their ability to model that the practitioner can balance their own self-care with caring for others
The fee that a practitioner charges, sends a symbolic message about how the practitioner feels about their value in proficiency, experience, and qualification. If a practitioner under charges, it can give the impression that they lack respect for themselves, and can cause a client to consider how safe they might feel and how effective the work might be.
A practitioner must be able to show that they respect themselves as well as the client’s power and ability to take responsibility for their financial prosperity and well-being. The client gets to show their self-value through their willingness to invest in themselves.
Research shows that the therapeutic and healing benefit for clients is more effective for those who pay than for those who do not pay. Being offered sessions free of charge or at a severely under-valued rate may cause a client to feel either falsely special to the practitioner, disempowered, or patronised. Yet in some cases, offering a rare discounted or free session in just the right moment during someone’s healing journey can help the client to heal a worthiness and loveability wound.
Another issue that can colour feelings about the value of professional holistic and complementary healing sessions is that therapeutic healing is also offered by many leaders and practitioners involved with spiritual and religious organisations. In these cases, they may be funded for their work and be in the position to offer their services for free or by donation.
Just because some people are in a position to offer sessions free-of-charge, doesn’t mean that a healing practitioner should become self-sacrificing or that a client should expect to receive qualified professional services for free. Our healing practitioner may be someone that we feel very friendly with, yet they are not in the position of a friend when they are offering services. They are offering a professional, skilled service.
So, practitioners: It is your responsibility to yourself and your clients to value and honour yourself. You are worthy of receiving financial prosperity in return for your good work. Clients and potential clients: Nothing in your life is of greater value than your health and well-being.
You are worthy of investing in yourself. Taking care of yourself is your gift to yourself, and being happier and healthier will make you an even brighter blessing to others.