72 | Is it possible to sustain yourself with a clinical practice?

Welcome to this episode of "In the Clinic with Camille," hosted by Camille Freeman, a clinical herbalist and licensed nutritionist. In this episode, Camille addresses question from Katie about the feasibility of supporting oneself solely through a clinical practice.

Camille explores the realities of establishing a sustainable clinical practice, emphasizing that it often takes at least two to three years to achieve financial stability. She discusses the importance of having realistic expectations, the necessity of additional income streams, and the emotional and psychological demands of a full-time practice.

Additionally, Camille shares insights on the unique challenges faced by herbalists, including educating the public about the role of herbalists. She recommends essential reading materials, including "Heart-Centered Business" by Mark Silver and "Radical Healership" by Laura Mae Northrup, to support practitioners in their journey.

Visit intheclinic.com for more episodes and resources or to ask a question for Camille to answer on the podcast.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman.
I am a clinical herbalist and licensed nutritionist. And in this podcast,
I share little tips and tidbits that may be helpful for other practitioners.
Well, hello. Welcome back. Thank you for being here today.
I have a question that Katie sent me and I wanted to share it with everybody

(00:21):
because I think other people might have the same question. then.
So the question Katie sent in was, if it's possible to support yourself with
a clinical practice or if you need to wear other hats.
Let me share my perspective on this. It is possible to support yourself with
a clinical practice and there are some really big caveats.
The first thing that I want to tell you about this is that most people need

(00:45):
at least two or three years in order to fully support themselves with their practice, if not more.
Okay, so is it possible? Yes. Does it take a long time to get there? Also, yes.
If you have a bunch of other things going on, and you only have a few hours
a week to dedicate to your clinical practice, it's going to take longer to build
it to where it is a sustainable and supportive part of your income. Okay.

(01:10):
Mark Mark Silver, in his book, Heart-Centered Business, talks about your practice
or your business as a child.
In its first few years. And of course, it is not reasonable to expect a child
to financially support the entire family.
And when you are expecting a brand new business to financially support you right
away, that's an unrealistic expectation as well. So I think that's a really helpful metaphor.

(01:34):
Now, there are exceptions. I'm not saying that it's impossible for people to
go right out of the gate out of a training program or a degree program or whatever
it is, and start supporting themselves within a year. What I am saying is it's unlikely.
If you have lots of time, very few caregiving responsibilities,
if you have a spouse or a partner who supports you, you may have more time to

(01:58):
devote to this, and that might speed up the process a little bit.
If you are a naturally outgoing person, and or if you have a really large network,
either online or large community where you live, work, etc.,
then you may have a little bit of a jump start.
If you're okay talking about what you do, if you do a really great job connecting
with people, you can speed this whole thing up a little bit.

(02:20):
However, most of us really have to learn the ins and outs of clinical practice,
and we do it by trial and error, which means it takes a long time.
And the harder it is for you to put yourself out there, the longer it takes
to do the work of helping people see what you do, helping people know what you
do, helping them feel comfortable with you, and being there when people are looking for you.

(02:43):
That's just something that takes several years for many of us.
So I don't, I'm not trying to discourage people by saying this,
and I hope you're not hearing it that way.
But when you understand, when you have a realistic understanding of the time
that you can expect to gear up towards a clinical practice, then you can plan for it.
You can say, okay, knowing this, what am I going to do to provide income and

(03:05):
support in the meantime?
And we all have different ways of piecing that together. other.
So that's one caveat that I wanted to tell you.
The other caveat is that a full-time clinical practice.
Even if you have the marketing savvy and you learn how to do it and go out there
and your community loves you and you're there and you're supporting people and

(03:27):
you're seeing people, a full-time clinical practice is extremely hard for other reasons as well.
It's not just the effort that it takes to bring in the client.
It is also the energetic, mental, psychological effort that goes into seeing
people that sometimes means a full-time clinical practice is not realistic.

(03:49):
It depends on your capacity.
It depends on, you know, what kind of supports you have in place.
It depends on how much time you have, your restorative practices,
all of these types of things come into play.
But a lot of clinicians actually limit the number of clients they see,
not because they can't see more, they can't find more clients to come and fill

(04:09):
those spots, but because emotionally,
physically, or for other reasons, they really just don't feel prepare to take
on more clients than that.
And so for that reason, many people like to supplement their clinical income
with other activities, teaching, making herbal remedies, leading herb walks, the types of things.
Okay. The other thing I will say is that if you are listening and you're an

(04:33):
herbalist, there is an extra challenge, which is that people,
many people in our communities don't have a pre-existing framework for what an herbalist is.
So they don't know to look for you when you could be helpful.
So if you're a nutritionist or
a health coach or trainer or something like that, people have a concept.

(04:54):
They know, oh, okay, I need a nutritionist because I think I'm having problems with dairy or whatever.
I have a weird relationship with food. I think a nutritionist would be helpful.
With an herbalist, they don't really know to Google herbalist.
So there is that added benefit.
That added work to do on your end, you not only have to help let people know,

(05:14):
oh, here's what I personally do.
And here's when you might want to work with me, you have to let people know
what an herbalist is, in general.
And so that is another thing that kind of extends the runway for people who
are in the herbal field versus those of you listening who are nutritionists,
or who have another modality that already exists in people's consciousness in some way.

(05:37):
So some communities may have lots of herbalists and that it may be a more common thing.
But for many places, there just isn't that concept.
And so there is the underlying education that goes into things before people
will even consider coming to work with you specifically.
Okay. So I, again, my intention here is not to dissuade anybody from pursuing a clinical path.

(06:01):
And I really, I really want you to go into it with your eyes open if you decide to do this work.
If this is your calling and you feel like you have a lot to offer here,
then think really carefully about how you can make this sustainable and supportive
as you build up your practice to where it is sustaining and supporting you.

(06:22):
The last thing I will say before I wrap up here is that I've already mentioned
Mark Silver's book, Heart-Centered Business,
which I highly recommend you read if you are in the process of thinking about
this path or in the early stages of pursuing clinical practice and in a way
that supports yourself.
And the other book that I highly recommend you check out is called Radical Healership

(06:42):
by Laura Mae Northrup, who also goes into some of the.
Mental, emotional issues that come up when we start to do this visibility work
and think about what it means to support ourselves, what it means to ask for
support from our clients in a way that is reciprocal and sustainable for both people.

(07:02):
So I highly recommend checking out those two books if you haven't already.
And Katie, I hope this is helpful for everybody who's listening.
I hope it was helpful for you as well.
Best of luck as you do this work. If you need support along the way,
that is very specifically why I created the Monday Mentoring Community of Practice
because these things are hard.
It's easy to get lost in the weeds when you're trying to do this work and it

(07:26):
feels like nothing's working,
be around other people who can give you the outside perspective that you need
to get through those hard things so that you can grow as a practitioner and
keep doing the work that you really want to do to support your community.
Right. So you can find out more about Monday Mentoring at camillefreeman.com
slash mondaymentoring.
And the last thing I'll say is that I have a new podcast page,

(07:49):
which is intheclinic.com. And
if you go there, you can find all of the episodes. You can leave a review.
I have never had before, but you can leave a review on the page and you can
also leave me a voice message.
So if you have a question you'd like for me to answer in another podcast episode, I would love to do that.

(08:11):
Just go to intheclinic.com and there's a little pink button with a microphone on it.
If you click that, it just lets you record a really fast voice message.
I will get it and I'll answer your question. So I'm really looking forward to
hearing from you in that way.
If you're If you're not a voice message kind of person, you can also message
me and that would be fine too.
All right. Thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you really soon.

(08:32):
Hello. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I wanted to remind you that I send
out a practitioner note via email every Thursday with tips and resources that
help you build your practice and grow as an herbalist or a nutritionist.
I love putting things in there, books that I've read recently,
any useful websites that I've
come across, recipes, little notes of encouragement, that type of thing.

(08:55):
So if you'd like to get those, you can sign up at intheclinic.com or camillefreeman.com,
and I would love to see you there.