{"id":41,"date":"2018-12-04T15:06:48","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T14:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/18.185.92.33\/?p=41"},"modified":"2025-06-23T19:46:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T17:46:41","slug":"new-counsellor-in-berlin-how-do-i-get-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/complicated.life\/blog\/new-counsellor-in-berlin-how-do-i-get-started\/","title":{"rendered":"New Counsellor in Berlin. How Do I Get Started?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I moved to Berlin, everything that happened to me seemed to happen by lucky chance. Unexpectedly, within a couple of months, I was my own boss in a counselling career in Berlin, working as a counsellor in a private practice in Mitte. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the story of how I went from sharing a counselling room to setting up a practice community and the project It\u2019s Complicated<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The smooth start to my journey I have to thank the most helpful colleague, supervisor and friend for. Rebecca, a Danish psychologist who was a decade more experienced than me, took me under her wing and showed me how to get through the long list of practicalities<\/a> necessary to set up a counselling practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then I\u2019ve wondered how I can give back to the pool of karma, since obviously not everyone will stumble upon a fairy godmother like mine, once they move to Berlin and want to make a career out of doing counselling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now I know how to give back just a little: In the following, I will try to share with you as much information about the general procedure of starting one\u2019s own practice here in the city. This way, you won\u2019t have to base your success in settling into Berlin as a counsellor on something as arbitrary as luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let\u2019s take it step by step:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Register correctly as an expat freelancer and self-employed worker<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This entails, first of all, getting your tax number from the local tax authorities (the so-called Finanzamt). You first of all have to either download and print the form called the \u201cFragebogen zur steuerlichen Erfassung\u201d <\/em>or if you live right by the Finanzamt you can go and pick up the form. The great people from All About Berlin wrote a complete guide<\/a> in how to fill it in line by line (in English!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then you hand in or send the form, wait for some weeks, and your tax number will arrive in the mail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also means opening a bank account (everyone is raving about N26<\/a> as being the easiest and quickest way of opening an account, and it\u2019s free. And then, of course, you might as well get it over with and find a tax accountant. This way, when you have someone to help you out in financial matters and when it\u2019s time to submit your taxes, you have appropriate support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And finally, insurance! First of all, you need to get either a public or a private health insurance <\/a>and then, if you want to be proper and not take any risk, it\u2019s good to get an indemnity insurance<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many helpful blogs about getting settled in Berlin as a foreigner, the main ones being Expath<\/a>, All About Berlin<\/a>, Expatica<\/a>, and Settle in Berlin.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For questions regarding specifically how your professional qualifications translate to German standards, this is the best source: https:\/\/www.bdp-verband.de\/english\/faq-recognition-of-professional-qualifications<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have a psychology degree it might even be worth to enter the association BDP (the Association of German Professional Psychologists) since they have the resources to consult and support you in professional and legal matters. They can also validate your qualifications for a fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Find a place to run your therapy or counselling practice<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As far as I\u2019m concerned there are at least three different rental models as a private practitioner:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) One model is to find a secluded office space where you can fit two therapy chairs and what else you may need. You can start your search on ImmobilienScout24<\/a>, Kleinanzeigen<\/a> and WG-Gesucht<\/a>. I would also recommend making a post in one of the many Facebook groups catering to the many different groups of professionals and nationalities living in Berlin, and important for you to consider throughout your counselling career in Berlin. Often, when I find myself with a question regarding something specific to Berlin that confuses me\u200a\u2014\u200aand neither Google nor friends can answer it\u200a\u2014\u200aI reach out to the Facebook group \u201cDanish People in Berlin\u201d and if it\u2019s something specific to my profession as a psychologist and counsellor, I ask in the group It\u2019s Complicated \u2014 for therapists<\/a> (this one we created for those interested in the It\u2019s Complicated<\/a> project and those interested in connecting with their fellow Berlin-based colleagues). So, try to make a call-out. Who knows? Maybe another counsellor lives close to you and is looking to share an office space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was, in fact, my way of working 5 years ago. With my fairy godmother I shared a little room in Mitte. We were each there two and a half days a week, and we split all of the costs and the maintenance of the space. We ran a normal WordPress website, through which clients found us. It worked well and gave me a lot of experience in how to be your own boss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But with this option of a counselling career in Berlin, it\u2019s important to remember that you\u2019re in charge of absolutely everything, from web presence and furnishing to cleaning and stocking up on tea and coffee. This can be at once empowering and stressful. The only truly all-negative aspect of this set-up is that you risk feeling isolated and lonely. In my case, since it was a one-room office that I shared with my friend and colleague, we actually never spent time together during work hours. I only saw her when I booked an appointment with her for supervision or drank a coffee with her outside of work. This leads me to the second type of setup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) I\u2019ll call the second model the \u201cAd-hoc model\u201d and this is the second type of setup that I\u2019ve worked in. In this set-up, the organization simply takes around 25% of the session fee, and then, in my case, I also paid a monthly flat rate (a kind of service fee) of 150 euro for being on their website and drinking their coffee, utilizing their open space, etc. The advantage to this type of model is that it\u2019s easy, flexible, and somewhat social, and I found I got the a really good start in my counselling career in Berlin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually you have a lot of counsellors working from one space. Also, the companies that offer this type of service tend to have a successful website that delivers clients. On the website, you have your individual profile where people can contact you and set up an appointment. Furthermore, you don\u2019t have to hurry and get a lot of clients to be able to pay rent, and you can be more flexible with your time, and have other jobs on the side, and go on vacation without feeling like you\u2019re just throwing rent out the window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The downside, however, is that when you have a bunch of clients and add up the percentages you\u2019re paying to the company, you\u2019re suddenly paying them a really high amount. Say I work part-time and have 10 clients a week, and my session fee is 80 euro. That\u2019s 800 euro I make a week, times four weeks in a month equals 3200 euro. Take 25% of that and you get 800 euro plus the 125 euro. That is 925 euro, which in other words was what I was paying for having only 10 clients a week. Probably because that\u2019s a super high amount for being only 10\u201315 hours a week at a place, many therapy spaces chose a third solution, which is the last type of set-up I will explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) For lack of a better term, I\u2019ll call the third option the Group Practice model. This is what Mittelweg 50<\/a> is\u200a\u2014\u200athe practice that I help run and work from. Here the deal is that the counsellors share the expenses and responsibilities based on how much they use the practice. Usually the founders will already have set up a fully-furnished space, a website which delivers clients, monthly supervision groups, and all the other things that people with a counselling career in Berlin need to run their practice, and with a set monthly fee you gain access to a room part-time or full-time, depending on your needs and how much you want to pay. The advantage to this set-up is that it\u2019s social and has a community feel, and the practice works to get you clients. The fee is also much more reasonable than the percentage-based model, usually ranging from 195 and upwards, depending on whether you have 5 sessions or 25 sessions a week. The disadvantage is that you don\u2019t just stop paying rent if you go away for a month. In this regard, it\u2019s similar to a gym membership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3. Promote your counselling and therapy service<\/strong>s<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even if you\u2019ve found a room through a Group Practice and have a profile through their website, you\u2019ll get more clients quicker if you also put in some individual time and effort in promoting your services. In this day and age, especially in a counselling career in Berlin, web presence really is key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can build your own webpage easily through drag and drop website builders like Wix<\/a>, Weebly<\/a> or Squarespace<\/a>, or get a developer to make you a WordPress<\/a> site. You can also apply to become part of the It\u2019s Complicated<\/a> platform, which I recently helped launch with the help of my colleague and two savvy developers. The platform aims at simplifying your online practice and attracting clients, like other directories out there, for instance International Therapist Directory<\/a>. It also helps to write a post about your therapeutic offerings in one of the abovementioned Facebook Groups, and if you don\u2019t like to be self-promoting you could consider asking a friend to post a link to your webpage in a suitable Facebook Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A way to be seen without feeling like you\u2019re relentlessly self-promoting, is also to write an article or blog post. Maybe your thesis is still lurking in the back of your mind, and you\u2019d like to write a catchy and accessible synopsis about it, or maybe you just went to a conference and would like to distill all of the learnings you got into a blog post. If you don\u2019t have your own blog, you can always get in contact with the It\u2019s Complicated blog, and we can talk about publishing and promoting your post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something it took me years to learn, is that it\u2019s worth being a bit picky about which clients you accept. In the beginning, my eagerness meant that I welcomed almost every new client request, unless it was obvious that the problem was too severe for my qualifications. But if you don\u2019t allow yourself to be a bit mindful in who you chose to take on as a client, there\u2019s a risk that the match won\u2019t be great, and thus the risk of an early drop-out will be high, or even worse, you might feel that the strained process is stressing you out and causing compassion fatigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So try to spend time perfecting your profile text so that it clearly conveys your areas of expertise, interests, therapy style, languages you work in, personality etc. This way the right<\/em> clients for you have a better chance of finding you, rather than those who\u2019d maybe benefit more from seeing someone totally different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Manage your therapy practice<\/strong> in a smart way<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The average therapist spends as much time on administrative tasks as she does doing therapy. Answering emails, booking sessions, invoicing, it all takes up a lot of time, and can give rise to quite a headache. Fortunately, there are many offerings to help ease your admin load. There are free practice management tools like Health Kit<\/a> and to take care of invoicing there\u2019s a new free business account that helps with that called Holvi<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s Complicated<\/a> aims to simplify the chaos it can be to manage your calendar and offers secure messaging with your clients. With the right practical setup you can hopefully spend a little less time on practical to-dos and more time on therapy. We can also help you with finding more clients. If you want to learn more, read this blog post: You want to get more clients. But how? <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n