Happy, Healthy, & Wealthy Therapists
Aug 17, 2026 · 31 min · 9 segments
Amanda makes an argument that might be uncomfortable to sit with: the thing most therapists think is holding them back from premium fees, whether that's a missing certification, not enough years of…
Amanda BudurisHost
Almost every call that I have with therapists, the more that therapists want to transition off of insurance panels, the more they want to get off of EAPs or raise their rate to something that actually affords them the ability to live the life that they want.
we start to have this stuff come up, right? And especially this belief of, well, before I can charge more, before I can market myself with confidence, before I can really claim my expertise, I just need one more training.
And I honestly, I used to believe that too when I was at my university counseling center before I left for private practice, I saw all the people with all of the letters behind their name.
I used to think it was fancy in grad school when my advisor had PhDLP after his name.
I was like, ooh, letters, right? And then you start to get more established into your work and you start to see people who are X certified, Y certified, something, you know, some kind of certification ultimately.
And so many people I've seen, oh my gosh, have like five sets of these three letter things after their name.
But what I want to tell you is what actually happened in my practice, it changed my mind about this whole how many certifications and trainings that we need.
So what happens is I get a consultation request from and the form that they fill out before the consultation usually says something like this.
I'm looking for a brain spotting therapist, or I saw you're trained in EMDR and I heard it works fast.
People aren't usually looking for Something that's like, we're all told market your niche, but people aren't usually searching for therapy for emotional neglect as a child.
Maybe they are, but they're not usually looking for therapy for hyper-independent, high-achieving women.
a lot of people, especially with the use of AI these days, are getting smarter in how they're searching for things.
Almost every call that I have with therapists, the more that therapists want to transition off of insurance panels, the more they want to get off of EAPs or raise their rate to something that actually affords them the ability to live the life that they want.
we start to have this stuff come up, right? And especially this belief of, well, before I can charge more, before I can market myself with confidence, before I can really claim my expertise, I just need one more training.
And I honestly, I used to believe that too when I was at my university counseling center before I left for private practice, I saw all the people with all of the letters behind their name.
I used to think it was fancy in grad school when my advisor had PhDLP after his name.
I was like, ooh, letters, right? And then you start to get more established into your work and you start to see people who are X certified, Y certified, something, you know, some kind of certification ultimately.
And so many people I've seen, oh my gosh, have like five sets of these three letter things after their name.
But what I want to tell you is what actually happened in my practice, it changed my mind about this whole how many certifications and trainings that we need.
So what happens is I get a consultation request from and the form that they fill out before the consultation usually says something like this.
I'm looking for a brain spotting therapist, or I saw you're trained in EMDR and I heard it works fast.
People aren't usually looking for Something that's like, we're all told market your niche, but people aren't usually searching for therapy for emotional neglect as a child.
Maybe they are, but they're not usually looking for therapy for hyper-independent, high-achieving women.
a lot of people, especially with the use of AI these days, are getting smarter in how they're searching for things.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
