Show Notes

Welcome Back to The Designer Practice Podcast, and I’m your host, Kayla Das.

Are you feeling alone in private practice?

It’s not uncommon for therapists and solo private practice to feel isolated, especially when you no longer have a community of other practitioners to connect with.

In today’s episode, Noelle Rizzio, licensed clinical and school counselor and founder of Counselor HQ LLC will share how to develop a community to beat isolation in private practice.

Hi Noelle, welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here today.

Hi, Kayla. I’m super excited to be here and share this information with counselors.

Noelle, before we dive into today’s episode, please introduce yourself, where you’re from, and tell us a little bit about your own practice journey.

Absolutely. So I have been a school counselor for the last 20 years in Illinois in the United States. And I started out at a very small elementary school, and that was the first three years. And then my last 17 years I was a school counselor at a middle school. And that was fun, but I really felt like I wasn’t doing enough counseling that I was doing a lot of other administrative school-based tasks that weren’t really allowing me to see students on a regular basis as much as I needed to. And as much as they needed it too.

And so I got frustrated and I decided to get my private practice license so that I could see clients, the way that I wanted to and really make the impact that I wanted to make. So I did that a few years ago and have now transitioned away from the schools and I’m only doing private practice virtual therapy right now.

Amazing. So let’s get right into it. Why is it so easy to feel isolated in private practice, do you think?

Yeah, I think this is really important. I think that private practice offers a lot of assets. It offers autonomy, flexibility, really the chance to build your own clinical style. But it also comes with this structural isolation. And counselors, they’re working alone for most of the day. When you’re in private practice, your coworkers are usually your clients. There isn’t a lounge or meetings or, informal consultation that gives us that time to process difficult sessions with colleagues.

There’s also this emotional labor without a shared container. Counselors carry heavy stories, trauma, crises, and emotional intensity. And sometimes, in agencies or schools, that weight is shared across teams. But in private practice, you hold it alone day after day. And research shows that emotional isolation increases burnout. It increases compassion fatigue, and it decreases that clinical confidence that we can feel.

There’s also this lack of real time clinical feedback. In agencies and in schools, you get supervision, you get case consultation team support. You get that immediate feedback, but private practice removes all of these unless you actively are seeking them out. That can lead to things like second guessing, doubting our clinical abilities in the sense that maybe everyone else has figured this out except me. But then you have the added layer of the business tasks, and that can lead to some isolation too. Because you’re doing billing, scheduling, marketing, admin, you’re running the business, you’ve become an entrepreneur on top of being a counselor.

And the profession has this culture of carrying everything quietly. Many counselors were trained to be strong, steady, grounded, emotionally contained, and this can create a culture where reaching out feels like a burden or a sign of incompetence, and that really reinforces that isolation.

I couldn’t agree with you more, and I think that even though there’s so many perks of being able to do things on your own in private practice. Not having that community or that support system of people who get it as well, right? It’s like other private practitioners, other counselors, even clinical supervisors. I’m all about clinical supervision or consultation. And having that additional expertise that we normally would have in an organization. We just don’t have in private practice. And so building that community, which is what I love about today’s episode, is super important.

So why is having a community as a counselor so important do you think?

Yeah, I really think that community isn’t a luxury in this profession. It’s a protective factor. It reduces burnout and compassion fatigue. Research is consistently showing that peer support is one of the strongest buffers against burnout against vicarious trauma and emotional exhaustion. Connection literally helps us regulate our nervous systems. Community provides that clinical confidence and those ethical safeguards. Peers can help you see blind spots in yourself that you might not see.

They can help you brainstorm treatment approaches and maintain ethical standards and just really stay grounded in some of those complex cases that we deal with. Community becomes a built in safety net for decision making.

Community also improves professional identity and self-worth. Humans build identity through reflection with others. Counselors who belong to a professional community, they report they have higher confidence, lower imposter syndrome, a greater sense of purpose, and just more job satisfaction. A sense of community reminds us that we’re not alone and we’re not failing.

It also supports innovation and growth. Sharing resources, strategies and tools helps us stay current, stay creative, avoid that clinical stagnation, and really feel energized about what we’re doing. Isolation shrinks our professional world, but a community expands it.

And then lastly, a community provides that emotional containment. The stories that we hold require shared processing. When we deal with a lot of heavy things and having peers, having that community creates a space to say, wow, that was a lot. I need someone else who gets it. We need a place where that emotional load can be metabolized.

I love that you connected the fact that having a community is a protective factor. And I’m even thinking of different people’s personalities. Like I’m an introvert through and through, and although I do feel like I thrive being able to work on my own, it doesn’t mean that I can want to or needed all the time. And for all those reasons you mentioned is while I may be energized by doing things on my own, I still need to keep up, with my clinical skills and knowledge.

I still need to have other practitioners to connect with so that I can, not feel alone all the time. And I think that regardless of your personality, I would agree with you a hundred percent that having a community and community might look very different. And we’re going to talk about that in a second, but it may look very different depending on who you are.

A community might be like a small group of practitioners. It might be having a clinical supervisor. It might be attending peer consultations every month. It may be a bunch of different things, but at the end of the day. A community is still very important.

Yeah. And I like how you said that it can look very different, and I think what really made me realize that community was so important is when I moved from the school to private practice, because when I was in the school, I was working as the department head, but I had other counselors working with me and I could go to their office next door and collaborate and consult with them about something that had just happened right away in real time.

And then moving to virtual counseling in private practice where I’m home alone all day, meeting with clients individually and I don’t have that sense of community. And that’s where I think it really brought home how important that piece was.

Absolutely. So what are some ways counselors can have that sense of community when they are doing it on their own?

Yeah, absolutely. There are a lot of realistic evidence-based ways that counselors can create that connection. Even if, like I said, they don’t have it right next door. Joining professional communities or memberships is huge. If you have a state association or things like that. There are communities built specifically for counselors that provide discussion boards, consultations, resource sharing, case support, ongoing learning, and that sense of belonging.

There are also peer consultation groups, which you talked about they’re small, ongoing groups, maybe three to six counselors. They work on clinical case review, ethical reflection, and they provide that emotional support and accountability.

There are virtual or in person coworking and it’s just a regular coworking session, like supervision, but nobody’s really like in charge. And you could do that on Zoom or in your office and it just helps counselors tackle those administrative tasks that maybe they’re not used to. It helps them stay motivated and avoid that. I’m doing everything alone feeling, and like I mentioned before, there are the professional associations and conferences.

I just went to a couple conferences in the last few weeks. It was really great for networking. Advanced trainings. They have all different kinds of breakout sessions that you can really pick what fits what you want to learn about. They also have social events and it creates this sense of being part of something bigger.

I would recommend attending one or two a year to really strengthen your identity as a counselor and your connection with other counselors. You can collaborate with other practices or other wellness providers, shared workshops, co-led groups, different cross referrals, and just different professional development that builds both community and business growth.

There’s clinical supervision or consultation even after you’re licensed, like you said that just creating that ongoing supervision just for that mentoring piece, for that emotional grounding and clinical anchoring.

There’s online spaces designed for helping professionals. And I’m gonna talk about Counselor HQ a little bit later. That is definitely one of them. Facebook groups. There’s a new social media app called school, S-K-O-O-L. That is really great. There’s private networks, professional forums. These spaces offer different resources, emotional support, a quick connection, and a place to ask questions. That maybe those colleagues that you had would normally answer, but you don’t have those colleagues right there.

And then there’s just personal support networks I think, that are really important. Friends, partners, families, they may not get the counseling world, but they can still provide you with emotional support. They can listen about your day, obviously, with confidentiality and stuff like that. They can still hear about your day. And that can help you regulate stress. And reduce your feeling of overwhelm.

And then when you pair this with a professional community, it’s just a really powerful support system.

Those are some really great ways to be able to beat isolation. And I know I’m gonna go back to clinical supervision here because many listeners know I’m the owner of the Canadian Clinical Supervision Therapist Directory.

And even when we talk about what works best for you is sometimes we always think about one-to-one clinical supervision, and for some that might be the way to go, but a lot of clinical supervisors now provide dyadic and triadic and group clinical supervision. So you know, again, whether you are unlicensed, pre-licensed, or a fully active counselor. You could still choose any of these options that fit you.

So now let’s talk about Counselor HQ. And I know this is a platform that you’ve developed and it’s so beneficial to counselors, across really the globe. So can you tell us how it can help counselors beat that isolation that they’re feeling?

Yeah, absolutely. Being a counselor, it shouldn’t mean that you have to do everything alone, even if you do work alone. But so many school counselors, private practice clinicians, graduate students, they find themselves quietly struggling without that support and guidance or community that they desperately need.

As I said before, I attended a conference a couple weeks ago, the Illinois Counseling Association Conference, and I had an attendee come up to me and he said that this was like their Thanksgiving. This was the only time that they had a chance to get together and do that networking.

Counselor HQ was built to change that. I created Counselor HQ to offer a supportive resource rich space where counselors no longer have to shoulder the emotional, professional and practical demands of the jobs by themselves.

So here’s how Counselor HQ helps counselors reconnect, recharge, and rebuild the sense of community that the profession often lacks.

Counselor HQ offers a community that gets you. The counselor HQ Skool community that I mentioned, you are surrounded by people who understand the emotional weight of the work that you do and know what it’s like to be stretched thin. They speak that same professional language and truly get the unique challenges of being a counselor.

There’s no more feeling like you’re navigating everything in isolation in this community. You’re part of a collective. There’s also real time support, so you’re not silently struggling. You can ask questions, process cases ethically and appropriately, obviously.

You can troubleshoot tough situations and get input from peers and professionals who’ve also been where you are. Instead of sitting alone and wondering, am I the only one dealing with this? You’ll discover quickly that you’re absolutely not.

Also, counselor HQ gives access to practical, ready to use tools. Isolation often comes from feeling overwhelmed or under resourced. In Counselor HQ, we include different social emotional learning lessons, templates, worksheets, counseling tools, professional development resources, scripts, guides, and step-by-step supports.

These resources can reduce that decision fatigue. They can boost confidence and free up some of that mental space so you can actually do the parts of the job that you really love.

We do offer workshops, trainings, and different live events. You can make these connections through the live workshops, skill building sessions, q and a. We do some themed challenges and collaborative discussions. So instead of passively consuming content, you’re engaging with a community of counselors that are also committed to growing together.

This is also a place where you can share wins, struggles, ideas, and insights. Counseling is really emotional work yet most counselors have nowhere to put these emotions.

That skool community gives you a safe, structured place to debrief hard days, celebrate breakthroughs, share resources, exchange ideas, and really support each other. It’s like a virtual staff room that counselors wish they had.

 Also the skool community creates connection without comparison or competition, unlike other social media communities where advice gets buried or conversations get lost, the skool community is designed for clarity, collaboration and a calm, focused connection. Counselors can build relationships without the pressure, noise, or performative expectations of traditional platforms.

It gives you a sense of belonging that lifts up your work. The research is clear that counselors who feel connected experience reduced burnout, greater clinical competence, higher job satisfaction, and more sustainable emotional health.

Counselor HQ is where that connection is built and maintained every single day. You don’t have to pretend that everything is fine. You can be honest, real vulnerable, curious, supported. There’s no judgment, no pressure, just community growth and a shared purpose.

I love that. So can you tell us a little bit about how they can sign up for Counselor HQ and skool?

Yeah, absolutely. So Counselor HQ is the website and it’s just counselor, counselorhq.net . And it’s a free resource and you can become a member for absolutely free and get access to certain resources. There are paid things on the site, but becoming a member is completely free. And we have a lot of free resources as well.

And then the Counselor HQ School community, I think if you just go to skool.com and just search for Counselor hq. You can join that school community as well. That right now is $9 a month for a membership for that.

I love that. So for any listener listening, you can check out Counselor [email protected], or you can check out the Counselor HQ skool community. And I’ll actually link it in the show notes by heading to kayladas.com/counselorhq.

Counselor is spelled with one L for my Canadian listeners.

So like I said, you can scroll down to the show notes and click on either link.

Also, I know you have a podcast called Your Emotional Support podcast. Can you share with listeners you know where they can find the podcast and what it’s about?

Absolutely. The podcast, your emotional support podcast, it really is talking about building self-worth and building how that self-worth that we’re born with.

We’re born thinking we’re the greatest thing in the world, and through different things in our environment and our culture and just our lives, that self worth gets broken down. And so your emotional support podcast is all about reclaiming and rebuilding that sense of self-worth and really feeling valued in all of the spaces that we’re in. And that podcast is linked on my website, noellerizzio.com

And I am also publishing a book right now called The Princess Never Needed Saving, which is also about reclaiming that self-worth, and that will be also available on my website.

I love that. So I’ll also link to Noelle’s personal website in the show notes as well.

Noelle, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss how to develop a community to be isolation and private practice.

Thank you so much for having me, Kayla. I appreciate it.

And thank you everyone for tuning into today’s episode, and I hope you join me again soon on The Designer Practice Podcast.

Until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by Denis Pavlov Music from Pixabay

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