You’re Not Behind: Why KAP Practices Grow Differently Than Traditional Therapy Practices

If you’ve completed KAP training and then found yourself thinking, “Why does this feel harder than I expected?” you’re not alone. And more importantly, you’re not behind. We might assume that once the training is complete, the practice will naturally follow. But building a KAP practice doesn't follow the same rules as building a traditional therapy practice.

KAP isn’t just a new service, it’s a different nervous-system ask.

Traditional therapy practices tend to grow incrementally. We add a modality, adjust the website, maybe take insurance or expand private pay options. The work is relational, but the structure is familiar.

KAP, on the other hand, asks for something more layered:

• More preparation and pacing

• More collaboration with prescribers

• More ethical discernment around readiness and consent

• More tolerance for uncertainty, from both clinician and client

That’s not a failure of skill or motivation. It’s the nature of the work. When clinicians feel stuck after training, it’s often not because they “didn’t learn enough.” It’s because the container they’re trying to build doesn’t match the depth of the work itself.

Comparison is especially misleading here!

It’s easy to look around and assume everyone else has it figured out: full schedules, confident language, clear offerings. But KAP practices are often built quietly, slowly, and with an ebb + flow that can feel overwhelming and disorienting.

Many clinicians:

• Offer KAP only with a small number of clients at first

• Integrate it into longer-term therapy rather than a standalone service

• Take breaks when life or capacity shifts

• Need time to metabolize their own experiences with the work

I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear that we don't get to see any of that on social media...

Growth in KAP is nonlinear

This work prioritizes safety, trust, and integration over speed and set structure. So it makes sense that your practice would reflect those same values.

What often helps is reorienting:

• What level of visibility actually fits your nervous system?

• What kind of KAP work feels ethical and sustainable?

• What does growth look like for you in this season (not in theory, but in reality)?

These aren’t strategy questions as much as they are capacity questions.

And here’s the part that’s personal for me..

I want to name something here from my own experience. This work is hard and it is so worth it. When KAP is practiced with care, pacing, and integrity; it creates a kind of depth and honesty in the therapeutic relationship that I haven’t found anywhere else. Adding KAP to my practice has enriched my life both personally and professionally in ways that I would have never imagined when I was in grad school (my own supervisor actually told me that I was making a huge career mistake getting into this field)!

I’ve had moments where I questioned whether it would be easier to step back into more familiar structures. But every time I sit with a client or a colleague in this work, I feel the attunement and I fall in love with KAP all over again. This work has asked me to grow as a clinician and as a human. It’s required more listening, more humility, and more trust in process than anything else I've experienced (except maybe becoming a parent).

So if part of you senses that this path feels right, even when it feels uncertain, I want you to know that instinct makes sense. The difficulty isn’t a sign you chose wrong. It’s often a sign that you chose something deeper than you could have imagined and what you need is support that matches that intensity.

If this feels familiar…

If reading this brings some relief, or maybe names something you’ve been quietly holding, you don’t have to sort through it on your own.

I'm offering brief connection calls for clinicians who want to slow things down, talk through where they are, and explore what kind of support would actually fit right now.

You’re not behind. You’re building something that grows differently. And that deserves a different kind of care.