My Therapist is Burning Down the System

I was on holiday when my therapist called. You know, one of those peaceful, holiday afternoons where everything smells like happiness and nothing bad can happen. I was holding someone’s hand. There were birds. My phone buzzed. My therapist.

I’ve been talking to him weekly for half a year now. He’s helped me untangle enough emotional headphone cords to qualify to the hall of fame. But he’s never called me before. So obviously I panicked.

“Just letting you know,” he said, “our next session will be at a different location.” Okay. Fine. Therapists move. Clinics close on holidays. Rent goes up. It happens.

But he kept talking. Turns out, this wasn’t just a new address. This was a break-up. Not with me, but with the clinic. He was leaving the whole operation behind. The middlemen. The waiting room with the bad art. The shared receptionist who always mispronounced my name.

He is going solo. Independent. Just him, a couch, and probably some new software he don't want to learn. And while I nodded supportively like a good client, a small but loud part of me yelled:

Yes! Burn the system! Cut out the middlemen! Free the therapists!

Because here’s the thing: middlemen are everywhere. Like glitter after a craft accident. They creep into everything and are impossible to get rid of. They insert themselves between the people doing the work and the people who need it, and then act like they’re the most essential part of the system.

And sure, sometimes they help. Sometimes they’re useful. But more often than not, they’re just a bunch of PowerPoint decks and made-up fees standing between you and something good.

They are the agency that “takes care of business” but mostly just schedules meetings about color palettes, the app that charges 30% to “connect you” with someone you already knew from Instagram, the consultant who says “we need to circle back on the core offering” when all you wanted was a sandwich and a nap.

Middlemen are the reason for the inconvinient weather, and they are the reason why freelancers hate invoicing. The reason therapists have to pick between doing the work and navigating three insurance portals and a billing intern with a funny name who keeps “forgetting” to send receipts. But most importantly: middlemen make the work feel less human. They create distance. They add friction. They convince us we’re not capable of handling the thing ourselves, and then charge us for the favor.

My therapist starting his own thing? That’s a revolution. A quiet, polite, very emotionally-regulated revolution. He might not know what CRM stands for. He might still use an old cryptic Gmail address. But he’s doing something most people only daydream about: cutting out the noise. Choosing directness. Reclaiming the full weird, wonderful, terrifying responsibility of working for himself.

And I get it. It’s scary. When you’ve spent years behind layers of support staff and policies and procedures, doing it all yourself feels like showing up to a potluck with just a spoon and a dream. But it’s also powerful. You make the rules. You keep the money. You deal directly with real humans. No scripts. No portals. No funny emails from “Accounts.”

I’m rooting for him. And for anyone else bold enough to quit the platform, leave the agency, or ghost the middle layer entirely. Starting a business, or rebuilding an old one without the extra padding isn’t easy. Especially if you don’t have a business brain. Especially if your idea of “growth strategy” is a Post-it note that says “try not to burn out.”

But it might worth it.

Because once you cut out the middleman, you start doing the actual work. You stop optimizing for metrics you don’t care about. You stop apologizing for not sounding “professional” enough. You get closer to the thing. The people thing. The weird magic you’re actually good at.

So that's it. My therapist is starting a business. That’s the most therapeutic thing he’s ever done.