The Summer Slump Is a Construct, Not an Inevitability
If you're a therapist who relishes having a slower schedule in the summer, stop reading. This won't interest you.
If you're a practice owner who wants less business, less revenue, and less stability over the summer, also stop reading (and for that matter, don't bother following me).
But my guess is, if you've made it this far, you're looking at your July schedule and numbers with some trepidation. Because if you've been in business for more than a year, you know that summer is the slow season in the therapy industry.
Therapists take vacations in the summer, and that is a perfectly acceptable (and recommended) thing to do. Clients also travel, have disruptions to childcare, and less routine. Totally reasonable! That'll slow your business... to an extent.
But this idea that people just ‘don't go to therapy in the summer, and there’s not much therapists can do about it?’ I totally reject that. So should you. Because accepting that the therapeutic work stalls out when the sun comes out is not only harmful to your business, it's detrimental to clients.
I think about this on a personal level too. There have been summers where my own anxiety got worse, not better. The pressure to fill every day with magical memories for my kids sometimes filled me with dread, followed by guilt for not enjoying every minute of it the way I thought I was supposed to. Clients carry versions of this same thing: disrupted routines, exhaustion balancing work with parenting and social demands, financial stress from camps and travel. Therapy is more relevant during these months, not less!
My honest opinion: summer and therapy go together like sunscreen on warm skin.
But therapists often take a complacent approach to booking summer appointments, and then their practices suffer. And what do they do? They shrug it off. Oh, summer. Practice owners and therapists talk about the "summer slump" as an immutable thing.
Just a couple years ago my clinic manager commented that our July numbers had fallen off a cliff.
"It's the summer slump," I said with (nonchalant) resignation. "Well... what do we do about it?" he asked.
How cute, I thought. "Not much we can do!" I shrugged. He was baffled. Passivity is not exactly on brand for my leadership style.
Now, since my client retention makeover, I no longer accept the summer slump as a given. A summer slowdown? To be expected. Sessions falling 10% or more below benchmark? Not on my watch. I've heard from some practice owners that their revenue falls by 20% or more (!!) in the summer. My friends, that is preventable, and here's how.
Why summer is a great time to work on client retention
While fewer new clients initiate therapy in the summer, we can (and should) retain the clients we do have. And that can make a significant difference in your end of the month numbers, not to mention your clients' outcomes.
Working on client retention at a time when clients may be inclined to be more laissez-faire requires therapists to understand the value of continuity of care, and how to convey this to their clients.
Because lapses in therapy aren't only (or even primarily) about summer. The usual explanations clients give for not booking in as much over the summer (vacation schedules, kids being home, lower urgency) are real, but they're not the whole story.
From a retention lens, summer is the season where the small frictions that always existed in a client's schedule suddenly have room to grow. A client who was on the fence about keeping a weekly appointment now has an actual reason to skip it. Benefits dwindling mid-year adds a financial nudge in the same direction.
And yet, as long as their core problem is still showing up in their lives, they are still mid-treatment. And y'all know how I feel about clients dropping off mid-treatment (not good at all).
Therapists (and practices) can play an important role in helping keep client engagement high, and it doesn't involve persuasion, pressure, or becoming an influencer. All that is required is the willingness to help clients stay connected to what their "why" for therapy is.
A proactive approach to the summer slump
There are three strategies that make the biggest difference here, and none of them require a big lift.
1. Get clients booked through the summer before the gaps appear.
A "set it and forget it" reminder, sent before the disruption starts, lets clients lock in appointments while the decision is still easy. Once a client's schedule already has gaps in it, getting them rebooked is a much harder sell than keeping the booking in place from the start.
2. Therapists should check in with clients about how summer interfaces with their particular issues.
A short prompt for clinicians to ask clients how things are showing up for them this summer keeps the conversation about real life instead of just scheduling.
To the people pleaser: "I'm aware that you're going to be seeing a lot of family this summer, and you and I have been talking a lot about how hard it can be for you to set boundaries, especially with your siblings. Would it be helpful to turn our focus to this to help you prepare?"
To the newly single client: "I know you're excited for the three weddings you're going to, and I'm curious if there are other feelings coming up in addition to the excitement."
To the chronically self-critical client: "Summer is a time of FOMO, isn't it? How has your tendency to compare yourself to your friends shown up during peak Instagram season?"
This also reinforces for clients that the relationship is responsive to what's actually going on for them right now, not just a recurring calendar slot.
3. Create content that speaks directly to summer-specific struggles.
Disrupted routines, parenting on fumes, financial stress: these are concrete, recognizable themes that give clients (and potential clients) a reason to see your practice as relevant to what they're dealing with right now, not just a service they'll pick back up in September.
A summer edition of your practice-wide newsletter dedicated to unpacking summer-specific concerns, an Instagram post, or simply a reminder to book on your EHR home page can all signal to clients that your clinic understands what they're navigating right now.
Let's stop normalizing slow business
A lot of practice owners resign themselves to a slow quarter every summer and call it normal. And while it can be less busy, it doesn't have to be a major hit to revenue or retention. The practices that protect their summer numbers aren't doing anything dramatic. They're just making meaningful tweaks to how they communicate to clients. The clients are the ones who have to show up to therapy in the end. We just help remind them why they want to.
Retention is the most client-centred thing a practice owner can prioritize, and that's especially true in the months when it's easiest to let clients drift.
If you're reading this thinking "great, but how do I actually build this into how my team operates," that's exactly what the Client Retention Systemwalks you through. You already know client retention matters. This is an actual system: how to train your team to have these conversations, how to build rebooking into your workflow before the gaps show up, and how to track whether it's working. Summer is a good time to put it in place, because by the time your fall rush hits, retention will already be running in the background instead of something you're scrambling to fix.