Why I Left Counseling to Become a Coach

Ever since I began my business, one of the questions I’ve received the most is why did I start a coaching business rather than starting my own therapy practice? Making this transition was not an easy one, and came out of deep seeded disappointment - disappointment in our healthcare system, insurance companies, leaders in the mental health field, and the organizations which regulate and educate counselors - like the American Counseling Association (ACA) and Illinois Counseling Association (ICA) - of which I was formerly a member. Additionally, it came from the love I have for my community, and my innate need to be authentic in all realms of my life.

When I entered the mental health field, I had a basic understanding of the flaws of our healthcare system. It is an absolute atrocity that many people living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world are one accident away from homelessness. Prior to becoming a therapist, I struggled with medical debt myself. As a gig worker, bartender, and s*x worker, I found it impossible to find a therapist I could afford who was polyamory, kink and s*x work affirming because of my lack of access to “good” health insurance. After I began working in private practice therapy, I experienced the problematic nature of for profit healthcare from a new perspective.

In order to make services accessible while also being able to pay bills under the current cost of living, therapists need to accept insurance. Because of this, insurance companies ultimately have a stronghold on how much mental health providers are paid. I worked with clients whose mental health issues were exacerbated by our health care system - dealing with increased stress and anxiety due to the costs of healthcare, insurance, and inconsistency of coverage. Meanwhile, I was spending unpaid time on the phone with insurance companies who decided to audit me - meaning that I had to prove to them that my clients needed coverage. Otherwise they would no longer pay for their appointments - leaving myself with the choice to waive the fees, which would harm me, or ask them to pay the unexpected cost so that I could pay my own bills, harming them. And as an anti-oppressive therapist, providing profit to health insurance companies while trying to help the very people these companies were harming went against my core values and beliefs.

When the 2nd Trump Administration came into office in 2025, my experience took a deeper downhill dive. In addition to the harm insurance companies were already inflicting, now, we had to discuss protocols for protecting our clients if ICE entered the office, and consider how to write our notes for insurance coverage in order to protect clients with diverse immigration status, gender identities, sexualities, and even women utilizing birth control. All while having little to no guidance from our licensing and ethical boards.

As my neighbors were being kidnapped throughout Chicago in October 2025 and brought to a holding center just 10 minutes from my therapy office, I waited for a statement from the ICA or ACA on the human rights atrocities taking place. Our ethics code emphasizes social justice, advocating for our clients’ (human) rights in the public arena, and mandates that we have an ethical duty to address systemic issues that impact client well being. The lack of statement from our ethics board on the various atrocities taking place impacting the most at risk people - immigrants, people of color, low income people, women & the LGBTQ+ community - unfortunately trickled down into the way practice owners chose to respond (or not to respond) to the current fascist take over.

Inevitably, when you combine the concept of for profit mental health care with the lack of statement from the counseling ethics boards, practice owners will choose profit over people. My boss deliberately chose not to place “Know Your Rights” and “ICE is Not Welcome Here” signs for fear of offending potential clients. When I pushed back and insisted that our ethical code demanded we provide these resources, I was told not everyone “feels the same way” as I do - as if the fascist takeover of our city and kidnapping of our neighbors were feelings rather than facts.

When I first considered opening my own individual therapy practice, I wanted to do something that aligned with my values and passion. However, I am such an active member of the various non-monogamous communities in the Chicago area that opening a therapy practice specializing in non-mongamy would inevitably create ethical dilemmas. There is a strict, yet necessary, part of the counselor’s codes of ethics which forbids “dual relationships”. Both attending play parties and working as a performer at them means my circle spreads far and wide. And unfortunately, if a person sees or tips me as a performer at one of these parties, I can no longer be their therapist, and even more so if they were to see me engage in play.

As a relational therapist I knew that connection and belonging are more effective tools for healing than any therapeutic technique, yet serving my community as a therapist would force me to break that connection and sense of belonging for myself. I’d have to step back from the ways I participate in my community if I wanted to serve them as a therapist. When I told my clients I would no longer be working as a therapist, a common theme arose among them - their lack of healthy, supportive and authentic relationships. Many of them panicked because I was the only social support they had. I realized we spent years working on their individual issues, without working towards building necessary social support. And unfortunately the overemphasis of self-improvement and “healing” continually isolates us from one another. If we believe we are “broken” or must be “fixed,” it perpetuates the belief that we are less than, keeping us from pursuing true connections due to the belief that our most authentic selves will be rejected.

As I reflect back, I too felt the pain of this isolation as a therapist. I showed up to my office each Monday, feeling as though I was living a double life - each weekend attending sex positive events, engaging in sex work, basking in the infinite love of my non-monogous community - to show up to a workplace where my multiple relationships and bisexuality weren’t considered legitimate by my employer, and where I had to stifle my own beliefs about monogamy to provide counseling to individuals and couples engaging in unintentional, toxic relationships. It became increasingly difficult to hide such a large part of who I was while attempting to support my clients in doing the opposite.

There was a moment where I questioned whether starting my coaching business was too frivolous given what is happening in our country today. I also felt guilty about leaving my clients during this painful time, with so many of them being directly impacted by the Trump administration. However, the majority of people who engage in alternative relationship structures are also a part of the communities who are being targeted by this administration. Ultimately, I decided that helping my community create healthy relationships is an integral part of maintaining resiliency under our oppressive climate, because all we really have is each other.

As an abolitionist, I know that our for-profit healthcare system is too powerful for an individual therapist to change from within - so I made the decision to stop giving power to corporations and unethical organizations, and transfer the power to my community instead - by helping all non-monogamous people maintain intentional, fulfilling, and equitable relationships.

Photo by Ashley Summers Photography

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