Social media for therapists, without breaching anything

Every piece of social media advice for small businesses tells you to show your work. A therapist cannot. The one thing that would make the account compelling — what actually happens in the room — is the one thing that can never leave it, and that constraint is why most therapist accounts stall at three posts and a quote card.

The line, before anything else

Your professional body and your insurer set the rules, not a template and not this page. Read your own code of ethics on social media once, properly, and write down what it says about client material, testimonials, dual relationships and following clients back. Most of the anxiety in this area comes from never having read the actual wording.

Two things are near-universal and worth stating plainly: a client's story is not content even with details changed and permission given, and public posts are education, never advice to an individual. Everything below assumes both.

What there is to post instead

1. 1How therapy works as a process — what a first session is like, how long people usually come for, what happens if they cry, what happens if they do not.
2. 2Concepts, explained properly. What a nervous system does under stress, what avoidance costs, why the thing that helped at twenty stops working at forty.
3. 3The practical questions that keep people from booking: cost, frequency, whether it is confidential, what happens if they meet you in the supermarket.
4. 4Your own thinking about the work — a book, a model, a training you did and what it changed. This is what tells a stranger how you think, which is what they are choosing.
5. 5Logistics: where you are, online or in person, availability, waiting list, who you do not work with.

That last one matters more than it looks. Saying who you are not the right therapist for makes the people you are right for far more certain, and it saves both of you an awkward first session.

Things that quietly go wrong

• Testimonials. Most codes restrict or forbid them outright for therapists — check yours before asking anyone for one.
• Replying to a comment describing a personal crisis. Answer publicly with signposting to real help, never with anything that reads as individual advice.
• Symptom checklists with a diagnosis at the end. They travel well and they cause harm, and they are the format most likely to get a complaint.
• Following clients back, or letting the platform suggest you to them. Check your privacy and contact-syncing settings once, then again after every app update.
• Photographs of your room with anything identifiable in shot — a diary page, a name on a form, a car outside the window.

A week that is repeatable

One post explaining a concept, one answering a practical question about therapy, one about how you work. Three a week, indefinitely, beats a burst of daily posting followed by two silent months — and for this kind of account the audience is small and slow on purpose. The people who eventually book have usually read you for months.

Where the account should send people

To a page that says what you offer, what it costs, and how to take the first step — not to a contact form with no information above it. Deciding to see a therapist is hard enough without the price being a mystery, and "enquire for rates" is the most common reason a page gets closed.

Then keep a note of where enquiries actually come from. In this field it is usually a directory, a referral, or somebody who read the same account for half a year — and knowing which one is yours changes what is worth your evenings.