PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION
Open your own mental health practice
Open a thriving personal practice or therapy clinic with intimate mentoring from active clinicians.
6 Credits ($3,120) towards our MA Degree.
Next Cohort Starts: January 15, 2026
Learn Business Through Mentoring. Not Theory.
This program reduces theory and maximizes time with mentors who have built thriving practices. You'll learn simple ideas about what truly makes a practice thrive, and be held in a clear container that encourages you to take focused, meaningful steps.
Hint: It doesn't require you to build a social media following.
Less Social Media. More Presence.
Building a therapy practice does not require you to have a social media. In fact, many students, when starting this program, learn that they are spending far too much time on marketing and ignoring the simpler foundations of what really matters to clients.
Building a practice also does not require you to bill insurance. While it can be helpful, there is a large market of cash-paying clients worldwide who actively seek practitioners outside the insurance system.
Building a thriving therapy business is not about having the best marketing or artificially boosting credibility through credentials. It's about becoming the clinician who has a clear offering, develops immense depth, and inspires deep trust with clients.
Program Overview:
This program is competency-based. You move through specific skills and checkpoints at your own pace.
When you join, you get a set of core ideas and content to work with. Your admission also gets lifetime access to monthly live sessions with our mentors to help you implement them at your own pace.
Opening a private therapy or coaching practice is surprisingly simple. Even a multi-clinician practice grows from the same basics.
A few things make this possible:
You can start with no capital.
Demand for mental health care keeps growing.
Telehealth lets you instantly reach a worldwide audience.
Still, many new clinicians struggle. They are unsure what to focus on and how to build a genuine connection with clients.
This is not a social media or funnel-building course. In fact, we ask students to ignore technology during part 1.
The heart of this training is developing clarity in your offering and analyzing your presence so you begin inspiring referrals from clients. Clients tend to refer you when you have:
A clear specialty that matches a pressing need
Powerful, clear communication skills
Real clinical skill and basic professional habits
This program guides you through each of these areas. You’ll build a steady client base, increase your earning potential, and create a foundation that can grow into a multi-clinician practice if you choose.
Course Structure:
This course is broken into two parts.
Part 1: Inner-Work
In Part I, we focus on the inner work that supports longevity and success. We examine the qualities shared by strong, healthy therapists and break them down into simple practices. These are things most programs never teach, even though they shape the way your career unfolds.
We start from the ground up, assuming you have no existing clients, though many students in this program already do. We take students through a systematic progression for building a client base and reputation, starting with the people right in front of you. Our focus is on conducting sessions and using our presence to elicit the desired response from your clients.
Part one is also about rewriting our relationship to entrepreneurship, reframing it as a new opportunity for self-growth. Students leave part one with clarity around building an initial client base with the type of clients you want to work with, how to meet inevitable challenges, and how to use challenges as opportunities for growth.
Part 1 Objectives:
Establish a clear scope of work so that you can confidently understand what you're allowed to do and how you communicate that to clients.
Develop a growth-oriented, positive mindset for entrepreneurship using the “Inner Entrepreneur” framework.
Develop clear strategies for moving through your first 20 client sessions and transitioning free clients into paying clients.
Dramatically improve your communication skills to communicate clearly, confidently, and with warmth to help hold better sessions.
Use our proven framework for assessing real client demand and choosing a practice focus that meets a real need
Part 2: Building A Business
Students move to Part II only after finishing the work in Part I which includes performing at least 20 client sessions. This matters. To build a thriving business, you need clarity that can only come from real experience with clients and a grounded sense of their needs.
Creating a therapy brand takes care and nuance. People look for safety and reliability when they choose a clinician, so your presence has to feel steady and human. We give every student a website template that’s already structured for a therapy practice. It includes the basic technical pieces you need to launch something effective without getting bogged down.
Throughout this section, you’ll be supported in shaping a brand that communicates trust, warmth, and professionalism. These qualities help potential clients feel understood before they even meet you.
Objectives:
Clearly define your practice focus and explain how it meets an identifiable, high-demand need.
Build a simple online platform using our optimized website template that allows clients to find you and book sessions.
Understand simple digital marketing practices that help you get listed on widely visited sites.
Meet Your Business Instructors & Mentors
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Adam Carney
President
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Niki Wikstrom
Integrative Therapist
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Ilona Varo
LMFT, Integrative Therapist
ENROLL NOW
Enrollment Includes:
Option 1: Pay in full
$1,950
$600 Discount
Payment Plan: 3 Months
$750 x 3
$2,200 total
Payment Plan: 6 Months
$425 x 6
$2,550 total
FAQs: Professional Certifications
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No, there are no prerequisites. Experience in coaching is helpful in preparing you for professional practice, but it is not a requirement.
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Yes, this program is entirely online. Each level includes both pre-recorded and live zoom course components. All live sessions are pre-recorded for asynchronous learning.
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You'll get access to a live mentoring call once a month. Most students absorb and implement all the ideas in the course within six months. Although you have access for life and can do so at your own pace.
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This is a competency-based course meaning that it's not defined by the total number of hours and it's totally self-paced. When you enroll you'll receive the course materials which you can go through at your own time. There are clear checkpoints and when you complete the checkpoints you will pass through the course. The monthly live call is there to provide you with real feedback and mentoring as you go through the materials.
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Integrative Psychology is an approved secondary education provider with the Integrative Therapists Association™ (ITA). ITA is an independent credentialing body that approves standards for mental health practitioners and educators in somatic, body-based, and alternative mental health practice. Integrative Psychology has been approved to provide up to 400 hours of professional training, meeting the secondary education requirements for the Certified Integrative Therapist (CIT) credential.
For more information, visit itatherapy.org. -
Credit transfer happens seamlessly. After completing the training and assessment, the credit will be applied to your student account and apply the discount towards your MA Degree.
Yes, every credit hour you complete through our professional certifications does reduce the cost of the MA degree.