Mar 05 2025 23 mins
Katie has been working full-time in two different schools with students as a counsellor, family and play therapist as well as has a part-time private practice on Saturdays. When she is not doing virtual sessions with her clients, she sees them outside in nature with her dog.
Since she has been working full-time in schools for the last 10 years, Katie is now starting to truly give her private practice the attention and energy it needs for her to develop it more fully. One day she hopes to work solely in her practice full-time, hire a team to work alongside her, and specialize in play therapy.
Join us for our conversation today, where we talk about her journey, struggles, and wins throughout this time!
MEET KATIE
Katie Lutes is a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) with experience in education since 2003 and counselling since 2011. She specializes in working with children and adolescents aged 5-19, utilizing modalities like Solution Focused Therapy, CBT, Animal-Assisted Therapy, and Play Therapy. Katie’s part-time private practice offers individual, group, and family counselling sessions, both in nature and online. She is passionate about incorporating animals into the healing process Her practice is based in Victoria, British Columbia.
Learn more about Katie on her website, Instagram account, Psychology Today, and LinkedIn profile.
In this episode:
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Katie’s experience with building a private practice
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Seeing clients
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Promoting nature therapy
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Overcoming private practice struggles
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Katie’s hope for the future
Katie’s experience with building a private practice
Katie started her private practice in 2015, but only seriously started giving it the attention it needs to grow from 2022 onwards.
Katie has been working in the school system for 10 years now, which is why she has decided to move from working in the school system to working more intentionally with her own clients in her practice. She explains that she wants to stay with clients for longer - to see them through their healing journeys for a longer time than she can with students in schools.
Seeing clients
While still working with students in one school full-time, Katie is seeing clients in her practice too. She usually takes one to two clients at a time.
Due to still working full-time, she sees her clients either on Saturdays or sometimes during weekday evenings when her schedule can fit them in.
At the moment, Katie is working on building up her virtual client base.
Promoting nature therapy
Katie shares a lot about her nature and animal therapy modalities through her Instagram profile. She’s used Facebook and Instagram paid ads through Meta.
Additionally, she has begun networking and connecting with doctors, pediatricians, and children-centered spaces to connect with kids and their families for therapy.
Overcoming private practice struggles
One of Katie’s main issues has been broadening her financial bandwidth so that she can put more money into building up her private practice.
She built her website herself and set up her Psychology Today profile from listening to this podcast but finding the motivation and the financial success to add the rest of the pieces is taking more time than Katie realized.
Katie’s hope for the future
Katie wants to be a full-time play therapist! And that is what she is working toward each year. She wants to work half-time, hire some other therapists into her practice with different modalities, and have everyone functioning under a holistic approach to working with their clients.
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Resources mentioned and useful links:
Ep 155: Amy Eriksson: Establishing a Successful Group Private Practice in Canada | EP 155
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Sign up for my free e-course on How to Start an Online Canadian Private Practice
Jane App (use code FEARLESS for one month free)
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Learn more about Katie on her website, Instagram account, Psychology Today, and LinkedIn profile
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