65+ Ideas For Additional Streams Of Income For Therapists (With Examples)

As a therapist, you want to create additional streams of income but you are struggling to think of ideas.

Maybe you’ve been wanting to jump in and build an additional income stream for a while but need some inspiration. Or perhaps you’ve heard of a few ways that therapists can get more income streams but none of them have felt fully aligned for you.

This post will walk you through over 65 ideas for additional income streams that therapists can create beyond the typical private practice services of one-on-one or group therapy sessions. When possible, you’ll also get an example of the additional income stream in action to inspire you.

The Key To An Additional Income Stream: Expand The Value You Bring

Therapists are highly trained and have a lot of value that they can bring into the world. In addition to their therapy skills, there are also therapy-adjacent and separate interests, talents, and passions that can be leveraged as well.

The great news is that money follows value. Since therapists have so much to offer, building out an additional income stream is simply a matter of figuring out how to expand into new ways of delivering value. In other words, if you provide value in a different way, you will have more income.

What are some ways to diversify and use the license and skills you already have as a therapist? What additional income stream opportunities are available to therapists that they may wish to consider?

Global Events Make Building An Additional Stream Of Income Feel More Necessary Than Ever

The recent pandemic, inflation, wars, and climate change all have a direct impact on the day to day lives of us all.

While the overall trend seems to be an increase in demand for therapy services, that doesn’t change the ever increasing rise in costs of doing business and living life.

All around us there are rising health care costs, rising food costs, rising gas costs, rising education costs. It can be overwhelming to try to keep up or to feel secure in knowing demand for therapy will be everlasting.

For many therapists, it feels like creating an additional income stream has become a necessity. And that makes sense. Putting all of your “eggs” into the solo private practice basket may not feel safe. And unfortunately for most therapists, their private practice is the only source of income they have.

The Benefits Of Additional Income Streams For Therapists

There are a number of benefits therapists can enjoy should they build out multiple income streams.

• You can mix things up! Stop the boredom and repetition of just doing one-on-one therapy
• You can build out a stream that doesn’t rely on you trading hours for money – making you more money for less work
• You can make a broader impact with one-to-many types of income streams
• You increase your financial safety, if one source of income fails, you’ll still have income coming in from another
• You can work for another business and stop taking on 100% of the responsibility for generating clients
• You can have an income source that is free from all the rules surrounding operating as a licensed professional (in some cases!)

Therapists may feel like creating an additional income stream meets needs beyond financial security, needs like: stopping the boredom of private practice, gaining new levels of life fulfillment, or making a much wider impact.

Types Of Additional Income Streams For Therapists

Before jumping into all of the ideas for how therapists can make additional income, let’s consider the overall types of additional income there are. The types of income streams fall into four categories:

Offer A Different Service Within Your Practice – If you are only currently offering traditional one-on-one or group therapy sessions, there are a ton of further services you can offer within your practice that could diversify the way you bring in money. Quick examples include offering clinical consultations to therapists or offering testing and assessments.

Get A Second Job – As one of the most popular types of additional income for therapists, a second job means you don’t solely rely on your private practice for all of your income. Typically private practice therapists seek out part-time jobs so they also have one to two days a week for their private practice. Quick examples include working in an elementary school as the school counselor or teaching as an adjunct professor at a local college.

Build Another Business – Building a second business unlocks a lot of benefits like being able to create a business around your lifestyle and unlocks much more financial earning potential. Developing your own product or service can also lead to personal fulfillment. Quick examples include starting a consulting business helping new parents navigate the early years or teaching therapists clinical skills through workshops.

Set Up Passive Income – While not specific to therapists, it’s possible for therapists to get traditional passive income streams as well. Passive income includes income gained through capital gains, dividends, or interest. Quick examples include buying, holding, and/or selling dividend paying index funds or storing cash in a fixed-income instrument like I-Bonds and getting interest.

Before diving into the ideas, it may be helpful to consider which type of income you might be more drawn to.

Invitation To Stay Connected Into Your Unique Creativity

Want income stream ideas? We got them. Lots of them. And they work best with your creativity.

Before diving into the ideas, just a gentle reminder to stay connected to you throughout this journey. Exploring ideas before you build can help you clarify what you might be open to and what you might not be. Seeing examples of the income streams in action can also help you “try things on” for you.

For each idea listed, there are variations and alterations that could be made. Think of each idea not as a destination but a jumping off point. As it is, an idea might not be the perfect solution for you but it may provide the basis for your own chain of ideas.

As you read the ideas, you will benefit from staying creative – acknowledge your inner critic but ask that part of you to step aside so you don’t immediately shut ideas down.

At the very least, this article will get you thinking more creatively about how you could build out an additional income stream that is the right-fit for you.

65+ Ideas For Additional Streams Ideas Of Income For Therapists (With Examples)

Group Practice

Instead of making income from your own sessions only, expanding into a group practice is like growing another income stream beyond just you. If you want to remove yourself completely from clinical work, group practices can also align with that dream.

• Group private practice (like Chicago Compass Counseling or The Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center)

Assessments, Testing, Evaluations, Reports

Assessments, testing, evaluations, and reports are an additional income stream option that allow therapists to directly use their therapy license and skills – but in a different way.

• Psychological assessments including ADD & ADHD, dyslexia, aspergers and autism (example: Colorado Center For Assessments And Counseling)
• Forensic evaluations and assessments including competency evaluations, immigration evaluations, personal injury and medical evaluations, fitness for duty evaluations, police officer pre-employment evaluations, court ordered mental health assessments (example: Verdugo Psychological Associates)
• Crisis evaluator (Indeed for clinical evaluator therapist crisis)
• Critical incident debriefings

Health Care Jobs

• Hospital Social Work PRN (Indeed for hospital social work PRN)
• Insurance credentialing (Indeed for insurance credentialing)
• Clinical reviews for insurance companies for short term disability

Teaching & Academia

Help the world learn about psychology and mental health. Important knowledge to impart on both therapists-to-be and psychology-interested students.

• Community College
• Universities/Adjunct professor
• Online learning programs
• Academic Advisor
• Subject matter expert in course design

Coaching Fellow Therapists

If you’re a therapist who has done something that other therapists are interested in doing as well, you may consider turning your insight into coaching for therapists.

• Solo private practice coach – helping therapists build their solo private practice (like Allison’s Private Practice Building Membership or Kelly and Miranda’s Private Practice Bootcamp or Katie Vernoy One-on-one Coaching)
• Group private practice coach – helping therapists grow a group private practice (like Maureen’s Group Practice Coaching Services or Kasey’s Group Practice Coaching Services)
• Beyond private practice coach – could be how to write a book, create a program, do retreats, start a coaching business (Lee’s Become A Coach Program or Annie’s Program to Create A Program)
• Money coach – helping therapists with money healing and mindset (Keri’s Abundance Coaching and Tiffany’s Money and Lifestyle Coaching)

Teach Niche Private Practice Skills To Therapists

Beyond the broader strokes of private practice coaching, you can also get nitty gritty into very specific skillsets that therapists in private practice need.

• Teach therapists how to do billing (Be Your Own Biller)
• Teach therapists digital security and tech (Person Centered Tech)
• Teach therapists money, bookkeeping, or tax skills (Simple Profit)

Digital Products For Therapists

• Printable posters (Emotions Omega Etsy Shop Printable Posters)
• Paperwork (Private Practice Paperwork (UK) or Private Practice Startup (USA) )
• Blog Prompts (Psychosynthesis Cntre Etsy Product)
• Clinical handouts, worksheets, group activities, assessment tools, task cards, icebreakers (My Group Guide)

Software For Therapists

• Create an EHR (Simple Practice or Theranest)
• Create a therapy platform like Betterhelp (but better! How would you do it differently?)
• Create a “for all” directory (Zen Care or Therapy Den)
• Create a niche directory (Therapy for Black Girls or Trauma Therapist Network)

Clinical Supervision, Consultation, & Training For Therapists

Therapists who are highly trained themselves, have years of experience, and enthusiasm for sharing what they know may want to consider supervision, consultation, or offering trainings for therapists.

This can also work really well if you are a specialist in a certain area that is in high-demand for support. E.g, you are a therapist who has 20 years of experience in suicide and now want to help other therapists better care for suicide in their clients.

• Clinical supervision or consultation (Rebecca Wong Consultation)
• Clinical consultation groups (Like CollabOasis Consultation Groups With Jeanene Wolfe)
• Offer training in a modality: EMDR, EFT, Narrative, IFS, etc (IFS UK Trainings or Sonoma PTI EMDR Training)
• Continuing education courses (Zur Institute)
• Offer training in a unique skill: suicide, sexual abuse, animal assisted interventions, trans and nonbinary identities (Dara’s Nonbinary Course)
• Clinical skills based conferences or symposiums (Psychotherapy Networker Symposium)

Services For Private Practice Therapists Or Mental Health Businesses

Maybe you built a wildly successful private practice and along the way, picked up a skill that would serve other therapists building a private practice. Or perhaps you already had a passion and are realizing that it could help other private practices out. Whatever the case may be, you may find an opportunity for another income stream that serves therapists

• Insurance billing for therapists (Psychiatric Billing)
• Answering calls for therapists (My Solution Services)
• Virtual Assistance for therapists (ProductiveTherapists)
• Digital Marketing including: social media, SEO, and/or Website Design for therapists (SEO with Cinthia, Website Services with Melissa, Website Services with Daniel)
• Copywriting for therapists (Juliet Austin or KML Collective)
• Videography for therapists (Ernesto Segismundo Videography)
• Photography for therapists (Example photos with links to photographers)

Physical Products For Therapists Or People

• Mental health merch like tshirts, totes, and more (T-Shirt from Tiffany)
• Selling sandtray therapy miniatures (Sandtray Treasure Shop on Etsy)
• Decks or cards (Describe cards)

Coaching & Consulting For People And Organizations

Therapists have the knowledge that people want! Coaching and consulting is a very popular additional stream of income for therapists. You may also deliver coaching in many different forms: from one-on-one to small group sessions to online courses, retreats, conferences, memberships, or programs, the ways you can package and deliver knowledge are endless.

• Life coaching – including most things you would niche on as a therapist but on a coaching level. Could be: parents, burn out, breakups (Irene’s Nervous System Program,
• Health, nutrition, eating, food-related coaching (Nutrition Coaching with Libby)
• Consulting Individuals – (Samantha’s Sleep Consultancy)
• Corporate Consulting – (Femily “Silicon Valley’s Gender/Inclusion Advisor”)
• Business and executive coaching
• Financial coaching, money mentoring

Speaking, Writing, Content Creation For People

Speaking, writing, or content creation skills can be turned into an additional stream of income for therapists. While many integrate these activities into their marketing plan, they can also generate income.

• Speaking – corporate, health and wellness events, personal development events and more (Alicia Professional Health And Wellness Speaker)
• Authoring books (Nedra Wrote A Book on Boundaries)
• Professional blogging (Sharon Martin Mental Health Writer)
• Social media content creator/influencer (Rachel Wright Sex Educator/Influencer)
• Youtuber (Kati Morton)

Other Healing & Helping Services For People

Many therapists have or develop skills in other types of healing or helping work as an additional income stream.

• Yoga teacher (Yoga RX for Yoga Therapy and ED)
• Au Pair or Childcare
• Hospice and palliative care (About end of life counseling and Indeed for Palliative Care Counselor)
• Astrology, tarot, intuitive readings (Hannah offers Tarot)
• Energy work
• Massage therapy
• Cuddle therapy

Traditional Second Income Streams

Therapists aren’t the only people who want multiple income streams. As such, there are a host of additional income streams that might be called the “traditional” second income streams. These streams include things like:

• Stock market investing (dividends or capital gains)
• Real estate investing/rental property
• Renting a spare bedroom (AirBnb, short-term corporate or student, or long term)
• Renting/subletting your office
• Affiliate income

A Life Passion Can Also Be An Additional Stream Of Income

Therapists have a unique opportunity to use their therapy skills to build out an additional income stream, but they don’t have to.

If there’s some passion you have in life that is completely unrelated to the mental health world, you can pursue that passion as your additional stream of income too.

Some therapists have share that they are successfully generating income from passions like:

• Voice over work
• Art photography
• Jewelry
• Sewing and crafting
• Music and singing

Guiding Questions To Help Narrow The Ideas Down

You can bridge where you are now: in the ideas stage to where you want to go: the action stage by selecting an idea to try. You may feel overwhelmed with too many ideas, not knowing which one to choose. Here are some guiding questions that might help you narrow your ideas down to get clear and take action:

• What income stream would most support my desired income and lifestyle?
• What do I have a unique perspective on that would bring value?
• What ideas most excite me?
• What would bring more meaning and fulfillment to my life should I pursue it?
• What am I willing to learn to create the additional income stream? Am I interested in getting more training?
• What is going on in the world that might increase demand?
• What are existing skills that I already have that could be part of building my additional income stream?
• What life changes or sacrifices would I need to make to bring this idea to life? And am I ok with them?

Also keep in mind that you may not know what will or won’t work until you take action! Trying your idea out is the absolute best way to validate.

Additional Streams Of Income: An Opportunity For Life Fulfillment

If it isn’t clear from this long list of ideas, the ways that a therapist could create a second, third, or fourth stream of income are endless.

The trick to finding what works for you is following your own interests and enthusiasm. What ideas from the above list sparked your interest? What excites you? What are you thinking about looking into further?

Beyond the safety and stability that another stream of income can bring, it is also an opportunity for further life fulfillment.

So additional money, yes! Fulfillment, hopefully also yes!

What would meet that need for fulfillment for you? Maybe it’s making more impact than you are in one-to-one sessions. Or maybe teaching something that you’re an expert in and seeing your clients thrive gives you life.

The money and fulfillment combo is one to be desired (and it usually yields better results than doing something that’s an absolute chore just because it brings extra dollars in).

Hope this post has helped inspire you and you find your additional income stream.