ALISON CHISHOLM: BUILDING MORE THAN A PRIVATE PRACTICE | EP 177
Everyone comes to private practice from different paths, but there can be a common thread between them: wanting to help others.
For my guest today, Alison, she had a very personal experience of becoming a mother, and noticed that there was a gap in the market wherein many new parents needed pre- and peri-natal support. This sparked a passion project to fill that need and spread support, ultimately helping both clients and clinicians along the way.
In this podcast episode, join us to learn more about building a collective, an affordable website, and how to live and work by your values.
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MEET ALISON
Alison is a Registered Psychotherapist with over 10 years of experience across diverse practice settings. She co-founded Collectivus Psychotherapy in response to the increased isolation often experienced in private practice. Alison is passionate about fostering spaces where both clients and clinicians can thrive. She believes that when clinicians are connected and supported, their work becomes more authentic: helping clients truly thrive.
Learn more about Alison on her Psychology Today profile and website.
In This Episode
- Getting into private practice
- Building a collective
- Setting up a private practice website
- Incorporating your values
Getting into private practice
‘I was working with youth, which was something I really felt passionate about for a lot of my career … and I loved that, but then I had my own kids, and something changed for me.’ – Alison Chisholm
For Alison, getting onto her private practice path came from a very personal experience.
‘I had a fairly decent post-partum experience … while I was okay, I also realized that there wasn’t a lot of support … and I felt that because I was a professional in the mental health field, I was expected to be okay and exempt from any post-partum depression … I felt expected to know how to handle it.’ – Alison Chisholm
Throughout Alison’s work with youth in her previous years in mental health, she always made an effort to support the parents too. Now, with her personal experience of becoming a mother, she wanted to combine and align these values into her new private practice.
‘Both my partner and I felt ready to invest more of our time in the private sector, into our own private practice. We’d been doing that sort of as a side hustle … But we decided that we really wanted to treat that as a place for us to grow as therapists, and as humans, and invest in our private practice in a way that also serves us.’ – Alison Chisholm
Building a collective
Alison, her partner, and her best friend are all therapists and decided to go all-in on building up this new private practice.
It was a shared passion project, and in 2025, they decided to rebrand and shift the practice to welcome more clinicians and therapists, since they were getting a lot of inquiries about hiring additional staff.
‘When therapists have that space to be themselves and to continue and explore who they are and what their interests are, their clients are reaping the rewards from that. They might not even know it! But I really do think that fostering that space for ourselves is ultimately benefiting our clients.’ – Alison Chisholm
This is why Alison and her team wanted to create the collective: to serve therapists and clinicians who can then better serve their clients.
Setting up a private practice website
At the beginning of a private practice journey, things can get costly very quickly. Alison and her team built up their website using some affordable stock images and videos, but as their business grows, they edit, upgrade, and elevate their website piece by piece.
‘You start with maybe some stock images, and then you build the authenticity on top of that as you can afford to, as you have time to … You can do it in the way that [portrays your message] and as you grow, you add your uniqueness to it.’ – Jules Smith
Alison and her team also invested in some marketing experts at the beginning to help them launch their practice online with their best foot forward.
Incorporating your values
Collaborating with experts, professionals, and other therapists is a central pillar of Alison’s business approach, both when it comes to hiring people to help maintain the business, and to help give the clients the best experience.
‘I hope we can be a space to support others … When we’re supporting each other as colleagues, as therapists, then we’re ultimately supporting clients – and when we’re supporting clients as therapists, we’re also supporting our colleagues, we’re also building ourselves up and being authentic therapists so that we’re doing more than just intervention.’ – Alison Chisholm
She firmly believes that when therapists come together to support each other, their clients end up benefiting as well. Therefore, the business that Alison strives to create nourishes and meets the needs of professionals and clients alike.
Connect With Me
Resources Mentioned and Useful Links:
Finding Clients in a Saturated Market | EP 176
Learn more about the tools and deals that I love and use for my Canadian private practice
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)
Get some help and freebies on your website with WordPress!
Learn more about Alison on her Psychology Today profile and website
Rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and TuneIn
About Jules Smith
Jules Smith, MEd, RCT, CCC is a registered Counselling Therapist who owns a group private practice in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They are also the owner of Fearless Practice Consulting and hosts the Fearless Practice podcast. Through the Fearless Practice podcast, they provide invaluable insights and practical advice on starting and growing a successful Canadian private practice.
Jules also has written articles for the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy association. You can learn more at www.ccpa-accp.ca/blog/.
