Should I Start a Podcast? What Therapists in Private Practice Should Weigh First

Should you start a podcast? For most therapists in private practice, not first. Guest on two or three shows your ideal clients already listen to, then host your own only if you can publish for six months without giving up client hours, and only once your ethics code's rules on client material are built into the format.

A show lets someone hear how you think before they book a consultation. What it cannot do is fill a caseload this month, and its hours come out of the same week as your sessions. Below are the arithmetic and the ethics rules, so you can make the call for your own practice.

Should I Start a Podcast? Four Questions That Decide It

Answer four questions before you buy a microphone: who the show is for, how many hours a month you can give it, whether your niche holds 25 episode topics without repeating itself, and whether you can talk about your work without using client material. If any answer is unclear, start with guest appearances on other shows instead.

1. Who is it for? A show for other clinicians builds referral relationships and a reputation among peers. A show for the people you treat builds familiarity with future clients. Both are legitimate, but they need different topics, titles and guests, and a show that tries to serve both audiences usually serves neither.
2. How many hours can you give it? Count recording, editing, writing the episode page and sharing it. If the honest total pushes out a session a week, the show is costing you a client slot. The next section puts a number on that.
3. Is your niche narrow enough? “Anxiety” is a category. “Anxiety for first-generation college students” is a show. Write 25 episode titles before you commit. If you stall at twelve, the niche is not ready.
4. Can you talk about your work without client stories? Your ethics code limits what you can say about clients in public media, and that shapes the format more than anything else. The rules are set out below.

What a Podcast Does for a Therapy Practice, and What It Does Not

A podcast builds familiarity and reputation slowly. It does not produce inquiries on a schedule, and nothing guarantees that a given listener lives where you are licensed, needs the work you do, or is ready to start.

• Familiarity. A prospective client hears your tone and the way you explain things, which a written bio can only describe.
• Peer relationships. Every colleague you interview is a professional you have spent an hour with, which is how referral relationships start.
• Mentions and links. Many shows publish an episode page that names and links to the guest. Most of the search value of podcasting sits there, and it comes from guesting more than hosting.

Two things work against you. Listeners are not local, and you can only treat people where you are licensed to practice. The AAMFT code, for example, says therapists do not use technology-assisted means to practice in jurisdictions where they are not legally allowed to practice (AAMFT Code of Ethics, Standard 6.6). And an episode that lives only in podcast apps adds nothing to your own website. Publish each one on your site as a written page, so the work adds pages and words where your future clients search.

How Much Does It Cost to Start a Podcast? The Real Cost Is Hours

Starting a podcast can cost close to nothing in software. Buzzsprout's free plan includes two hours of uploads a month and hosts episodes for 90 days, and YouTube can turn an audio podcast's RSS feed into static-image videos on your channel. For a therapist, the real cost is the session time the show displaces.

A free plan that drops episodes after 90 days is a trial, not a home for a back catalog, so budget for paid hosting if you launch, and check current plans on the host's pricing page before you choose.

Here is the arithmetic that decides it. The figures below are an example at a $150 session fee. Replace them with your own fee and the hours you actually measure.

For comparison, a Psychology Today listing is a fixed $29.95 a month, according to its signup page. A podcast is the wrong choice when its hours could have been sessions you needed to fill. If your caseload is full and you keep a waitlist, the hours come out of your own time instead, and that is the stage where hosting makes the most sense.

Podcast Guesting: The Version Most Therapists Should Try First

Podcast guesting means appearing on someone else's show instead of running your own. An appearance takes an hour or two, the host has already built the audience, and many shows publish each episode on a page that names and links to the guest. For a solo practice, that is more reach and more authority per hour than a new show of your own.

How to Get Booked on Podcasts as a Guest

1. Pick shows your clients hear, not shows therapists hear. A perinatal therapist belongs on parenting shows. A therapist who works with physicians belongs on medical-career shows. Search the podcast apps for your clients' topic and listen to two episodes before you pitch.
2. Pitch three episode ideas, not a bio. Hosts book topics. Give each idea a title, a two-line summary and the one practical thing listeners will take away.
3. Ask where the episode page links. If the host includes a guest link, ask for it to point at the page about the topic you discussed rather than your homepage. The guide to backlinks for therapists explains why the target page matters as much as the link.
4. Decline pay-to-play shows. Some shows charge their guests. Under the APA code, a paid advertisement relating to your work must be identified or clearly recognizable as one (APA Ethics Code, Standard 5.02(c)), and Google's spam policies accept paid links only when they are marked as sponsored or nofollow. A paid spot is advertising, not an authority signal.

The ethics rules in the next section apply when you are a guest, too. You are giving public advice under your license whether the show is yours or someone else's.

What Your Ethics Code Says About Discussing Clients on a Podcast

Every major code limits what you can say about clients in public media. In short: no identifiable client information without written consent, disguise anything drawn from your work, never record a client for the show, and never invite a current client to appear or to endorse you. The wording differs by code, so check the one your license answers to.

ACA has said its 2014 code remains the current version until a revised code is formally adopted, so check ACA's ethics page for the version in force when you read this.

Case Stories: Disguise Is the Minimum

If your practice is a HIPAA covered entity, the Privacy Rule's safe harbor method for de-identification requires removing 18 kinds of identifiers, including names, geographic units smaller than a state, every element of a date except the year, and biometric identifiers, which the rule says include voice prints. It also requires that you have no actual knowledge that what remains could identify the person (45 CFR 164.514(b)(2)).

That is a high bar for a story about someone in your own town. The safer format is the composite: a pattern you have seen across many clients, told without any one person's details and labeled on air as a composite. Your ethics code applies whether or not HIPAA does.

Recording Clients or Inviting Them on the Show

Do not do it, however keen the client is. The AAMFT code requires written authorization before recording any audio or video of a client (Standard 1.11). Appearing on your show also adds a second relationship to the clinical one, which the multiple relationship standards ask you to avoid when it risks impaired judgment or exploitation (APA 3.05, NASW 1.06(c), AAMFT 1.3). And a client praising your work on air is a testimonial, which all four codes bar you from soliciting from a current client.

Listener Questions and Advice on Air

Answering a listener's question on air is public advice, not treatment. APA 5.04 and ACA C.6.c both ask you to keep such statements grounded in your training and the professional literature, and to make sure listeners do not infer that a professional relationship exists. Say at the start of every episode that the show is education, not therapy, and put the same sentence on every episode page. Decline questions that could only be answered by assessing a specific person.

Clients Who Find Your Show

Assume current clients will find it. The ACA code asks counselors to explain the benefits, limitations and boundaries of social media as part of informed consent (H.6.b). Give a podcast the same treatment in your paperwork, including what happens if a client wants to discuss an episode in session.

How to Start a Podcast With No Audience: A Four-Week Test

Start a podcast with no audience by testing it before you launch it. In four weeks you can learn whether you have the topics, the time and the tolerance for the work, at no cost beyond your hours, and you finish with material you can use on your website whether or not the show goes ahead.

1. Week 1: write the list. Write 25 episode titles phrased as questions your clients ask before they start therapy, with no client details in any of them. If the list stalls, narrow the niche or stop here.
2. Week 2: record three pilots privately. Use the microphone you already have. Time every step from outline to finished file and write the total down. That number replaces the example figures in the cost table above.
3. Week 3: publish the words first. Turn each pilot into a written page on your own site. If the writing turns out to be the part you enjoy, a blog may suit you better than a show; the content strategy guide for therapists covers what to write and how often.
4. Week 4: pitch three shows. Use the pilots as samples when you pitch guest spots. A booking tells you a host believes the topic has an audience, which is the cheapest audience research available to you.

Then put your measured hours into the table. If the show fits without displacing sessions you need, launch with three pilots ready. If not, you still have three articles and three pitches.

Podcast vs. YouTube vs. a Blog for a Therapy Practice

Choose by where the people you treat already look and by what you can sustain. A blog post answers a question someone typed into a search box and can be updated for years. A podcast builds familiarity with people who already follow you. YouTube sits between the two, and an audio show can be delivered there through its RSS feed without separate video editing.

If you cannot decide, record video while you record audio. Send the audio to podcast apps, the video to YouTube and the transcript to your site. The guide to social media for therapists compares the short-form platforms if clips are part of the plan.

If You Do Start: Format, Length and the Episode Page

Start solo or with colleague guests, keep each episode to one question, and publish on a schedule you can hold for six months. Every episode needs a page on your own site with a summary, an edited transcript and the not-therapy disclaimer, so the work builds your website and not only a podcast app listing.

• Format. Solo episodes are the easiest to schedule and give you full control over sensitive topics. Colleague interviews add peer relationships. Client guests are off the table.
• Cover art. Apple Podcasts requires a show cover to publish. Apple's specification is 3000 x 3000 pixels, PNG or JPG, with no transparency, and it accepts 1400 x 1400 up to 3000 x 3000 through an RSS feed.
• Transcripts. Buzzsprout says it creates transcripts automatically on its current paid plans. Whatever host you use, edit the transcript before it goes live and remove anything that could identify a client.
• The episode page. Title it with the question the episode answers, worded the way a client would type it. Add a short summary, the transcript and the disclaimer, and link to the page on your site that covers that work. The guide to E-E-A-T for therapists covers how your credentials should appear on pages like this.
• Schedule. Every two weeks is easier to sustain than weekly. Pick the pace you are sure you can keep.

FAQ

Can a therapist have a podcast? Yes. None of the APA, ACA, NASW or AAMFT codes prohibits it, but each governs what you say: client information stays out unless consent or disguise rules are met, public advice must not imply a therapy relationship, and testimonials cannot be solicited from current clients. Check your state board's advertising rules as well.

Can I talk about my clients on my podcast? Only within your code's confidentiality rules: with written consent, or with enough disguise that no listener could identify the person. A composite of a pattern you have seen across many clients is the safer format, and it should be labeled as a composite.

Does a podcast help SEO for a therapy practice? Indirectly. The search value comes from written episode pages on your own site and from other shows' episode pages that name and link to you. A link you paid a show for should be marked as sponsored under Google's rules, so buying one is not an SEO shortcut.

Should I start a podcast or guest on other shows? Guest first. It takes an hour or two per appearance, the audience already exists, and it tells you whether your topics land before you commit months of production time to your own show.

Making the Decision: Should You Start a Podcast?

Start with the number of new clients you need each month and the hours you have. If a podcast cannot plausibly help produce that number in the time available, it belongs on the list for later, after the channels that pay off this month. The marketing guide for therapists works through choosing two channels against that number. If you do have the hours and a niche with 25 topics in it, run the four-week test and let your measured hours make the decision.

External Resources for Therapists

• Apple Podcasts for Creators
• Spotify for Creators
• APA Ethics Code (Standards 4.07, 5.04, 5.05)
• AAMFT Code of Ethics