On Valuing Yourself
And No Longer Tolerating Underpayment
As a Licensed Mental Health Therapist, I’ve received a lot of unsolicited job offers over the last 2 years.
Some (like BetterHelp) reach out to me on at least a monthly basis. Others reach out once or twice over the course of a week or two.
For others I’ll receive at least 4 messages in a week’s time (like this week).
And for all of them I do not respond.
In fact, for some, I’ve sent them to the spam folder due to what felt like an excessive amount of messages.
Why, you ask?
Allow me to explain…
In order to become a Licensed Mental Health Therapist there is a lot of time and work involved. You need at least a Master’s degree in addition to earning your licensure post-graduation.
For some, it can take 2 years to get the Master’s degree. For some others, like myself, it can take 3-4 years if you’re also needing to work full-time or have other life obligations.
Then following graduation, you need to collect hours for licensure. In California, this is 3,000 hours, though some other states can go as low as 2,000.
Depending on where you find places to collect those hours, it can take 2 years or it can take up to 6 years. In addition, when you collect those hours many places either expect you to work for free (fortunately, that has gotten better since I graduated) or (as in my situation) you are offered obscenely low pay given the amount of work required.
For myself, this entire process from starting grad school to becoming licensed took 7 years. As a fellow colleague said it to me one time, “The only other profession that requires this amount of time and work just to start your career is to become a medical doctor. But at least the medical doctor is being paid significantly more.”
So when I receive these messages of job offers in my inbox, I automatically delete them.
Why?
Because I know the pay is low given the amount of work required.
Because I know the pay is not high enough given the work conditions.
Because I know the pay is far too low given all of the work I’ve done in order to get to where I am today.
And, frankly, its total BS that someone who has spent 7 years from the start of grad school to getting licensed is going to be offered something like $65,000 for a full-time “entry-level” position that’s either going to require 50-60 hours of work per week or have not-so-great work conditions (or both).
I had already burnt out working that amount of hours for less than that as a pre-licensed therapist. So why on earth would I put myself in that position again?
After all, you can’t really help others if you’re not helping yourself. And I wouldn’t be helping myself and others at all by choosing to accept so little.
This is why I’ve gone into private practice and have never, ever looked back.
It’s unfortunate that we live in a society where those in the “helping professions” are expected to accept low wages despite the amount of time and energy required to do the work.
Teachers.
Child care providers.
Social workers.
And so on.
It’s extremely unfortunate that the professions that are focused on helping human beings are actually some of the most undervalued.
What does that say about us as a society?
What does that say about our values?
What does that say about who we are at this moment in history?
Many lives might look extremely different right now if, collectively, there was a shift in values.
If we valued helping one another more than our gains in property value.
If we valued children and families more than Wall Street.
If we valued supporting one another more than billion dollar start ups.
And I do believe that in order for that shift to happen, we all have to really start recognizing our own worth, our own value. Because, frankly, we are worth so much more than what we often give ourselves credit for.
We can’t continue to accept anything less than what we know we are worth. When we ask for what we know we are worth, we are not only helping ourselves but we are also giving others permission to ask for what they’re worth as well.
It has a trickle effect that starts within each and every one of us.
So what are you worth?