Psychology Today is where most new solo therapists start. The directory is well-known, clients use it, and getting a profile live is straightforward. As a starting point, it's fine. As a long-term client acquisition strategy, it's fragile.
A profile on a directory you don't control is a dependency. The platform's algorithm changes. Visibility shifts. Neighboring profiles accumulate reviews and yours does not. Building a practice that depends primarily on a single directory is building a practice on someone else's decisions.
The referral sources worth building are the ones where you have some influence and can develop relationships over time. Here's what that looks like in practice.
Google Business Profile
This is the most underused free tool for new solo therapists. When a potential client searches for "therapist near me" or "anxiety therapist in [city]," Google's local results show practices with a Google Business Profile, complete with hours, reviews, and contact information. A therapist with a complete, well-reviewed GBP can rank above a Psychology Today profile in local searches.
Setting this up takes about two hours. Maintaining it means checking that your information is accurate and responding to reviews. Most new therapists wait months to do this, or never do it.
Physician referrals
Primary care physicians and OBGYNs are asked regularly by patients for therapist referrals. They almost always refer to someone they've met or who has reached out to introduce themselves. A one-paragraph email introducing yourself, your specialty, and your current availability, sent to 10-15 practices near your office, produces results over months, not weeks. But it produces them consistently.
The same applies to other high-referral adjacent professionals: pediatricians if you see children or adolescents, school counselors, psychiatrists, and employee assistance program coordinators.
This is a relationship play, not a volume play. One physician who trusts your work can send three referrals a year for five years. That relationship is worth more than 50 cold directory impressions.
Peer referrals from other therapists
If you trained in a group practice or during a practicum, your former colleagues are the warmest possible referral source. They know your work. They know your specialty. When they're full, they need someone to refer to.
Tell people in your network directly that you're taking clients. "I'm open to referrals" is a sentence worth saying out loud, not just implying. The colleagues who know you from training will refer before they refer to a stranger on a directory.
Specialty directories
If you have a defined specialty, there are directories more focused than Psychology Today. A few examples:
OCD: the IOCDF therapist finder.
Perinatal mental health: Postpartum Support International's provider directory.
Trauma: the EMDRIA therapist directory if you're EMDR-trained.
LGBTQ+ clients: Therapy Den has a strong reputation with this population.
These are lower volume than Psychology Today but the clients who find you through them are specifically looking for what you offer. The conversion rate is higher.
EAPs as a bridge
Employee Assistance Programs are a polarizing topic among private practice therapists. The rates are low, typically $60-80 per session versus private-pay market rates. The sessions are capped, typically three to eight per client. But EAP panels are faster to join than commercial insurance panels, and they provide consistent referral volume during the early months when a practice is building.
Many therapists use EAPs as a financial bridge during the first six to twelve months, then reduce or eliminate EAP clients as their private-pay caseload grows. Whether this makes sense depends on your fee structure and local market.
The strategy underneath the channels
The therapists who built a full caseload in their first year didn't do all of this simultaneously. They set up Google Business Profile and Psychology Today in month one. They started physician outreach in month two. Peer referrals came through relationships they'd already built.
Each channel they added reduced their dependency on any single one. That's the goal: not one directory, but a mix where losing any single source doesn't collapse the practice.