Should Therapists Create an Online Course?
There's a moment that shows up on almost every discovery call I take with a therapist. We've done the easy part.
They've told me about their practice, the thing they want to teach, and the people they keep thinking about who will never make it off their waitlist.
And then, usually right after they say something hopeful, there's a pause.
Then comes the "but."
"I love my clients, but I can't keep doing this many sessions. And I feel guilty for even thinking that."
The first "but" is rarely the last one. Once it's out, the others tend to follow it into the room, like they'd been waiting in the hallway the whole time.
I'm MJ, and I lead online launches (courses, group programs, and one-on-one coaching), mostly for therapists and online business owners.
I'm not going to tell you that launching is a walk in the park, and I'm not going to tell you these doubts are wrong.
Both would be easier to hear, and neither would be honest.
What I'd rather do is lay each doubt on the table where you can see it clearly, so you can decide for yourself which ones deserve a say in what you do next.
Take what's useful and leave the rest. :)
What Therapists Worry About Before Creating an Online Course
1) The guilt usually comes first. Wanting fewer one-on-one sessions can feel like wanting to care less, even when the opposite is true and the reason you're tired is how much you care.
2) Next comes "but you've never done this before." This one has a particular sting for therapists.
One of them put it in a way I still think about: you spend your days encouraging clients to try new, scary things, and then you find yourself terrified to do it yourself.
3) Visibility comes up a lot too. I've heard therapists describe putting themselves out there as exposing, as if it goes against the way they're used to showing up for clients.
There are real guardrails here, since professional ethics codes have rules about advertising, testimonials, and protecting client privacy.
But none of them say you can't show up as yourself, and it's easy for "be careful" to slowly turn into "stay invisible."
4) Then there's the question of what other therapists will think. Will colleagues see a course as selling out? Will they privately decide you're not a real therapist anymore?
5) And last, usually the hardest one to say out loud, comes the money one: "Who am I to put a price on someone's healing?"
If you recognized yourself in two or three of these, that's normal.
If you recognized yourself in all five, you're in very good company.
I've heard every one of them from people who are thoughtful, qualified, and really good at what they do.
Which of Your Doubts Deserve a Say?
A launch asks for real time, money, and a willingness to be seen, and it often asks for all three at once.
Anyone who promises otherwise is usually selling you the shiny version.
That's exactly why your doubts are worth looking at. It's also why not every one of them deserves a vote.
Some of them point at something real.
If your calendar is already full, the guilt about fewer sessions is also a practical question about where the hours for a course would come from.
If being visible feels wrong, that tells you something useful about what kind of launch would fit, and the answer might be a smaller, lower-key one, at least the first time.
The pricing question has more than one honest answer too, including the one where a course reaches people who could never afford your hourly rate.
Other doubts are mostly fear wearing a lab coat. "You've never done this before" is true. It's also true of every first launch that has ever happened.
I know the visibility one from the inside.
For years, I told clients that showing up on social media wasn't that hard, while I stayed comfortably behind the scenes.
I felt like a hypocrite, and of course, I was ashamed.
So I made a bet on myself starting July 2026, and joined Jessi Jean's YAP Challenge, which meant talking to a camera, on purpose, a loooooot (see it for yourself, we might even be accountability buddies 😂).
I signed up to build the muscle: to get past the cringe, to stop worrying so much about what people might think, and to let more of the real me show so the right people could find me.
Some days it still feels a little strange (a bit of cringe it still there), but it has stopped feeling like a reason not to do it.
Is It Too Early to Get Help With Your Online Launch?
By the end of most of these calls, the doubts have usually turned into three practical questions.
Where do I even start?
What kind of support do I actually need?
And am I too early to need support at all?
Those are good questions, and they deserve straight answers before you spend money on anything.
Launch support is a real investment, and I'd rather you make that decision with a clear head than in the middle of a 10:19pm spiral.
So I made the Launch Fit Quiz.
It's free, and it doesn't ask for your email. It's meant to help you figure out where you are right now whether:
you're ready for launch support,
what kind would fit, or
whether it makes more sense to build a little more first.
Sometimes the most useful answer is "not yet," and I'd rather you hear that from a quiz than spend money you didn't need to spend.
You don't have to settle all five "BUTs" before you take a step.
You only need to know which one is loudest right now, and what one small step past it might look like.
