Frequently Asked
Question’s

You’ve got questions about marketing your practice. We've got answers, grounded in 20 years of marketing, CPBAO and CRPO compliance, and the realities of regulated practice.

Marketing for Psychologists & Psychotherapists

  • Yes. The College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario (CPBAO) permits members to advertise, but with specific restrictions: advertisements must be clearly identifiable as such, testimonials cannot be used to promote your practice, you cannot directly solicit individuals who need services, and you cannot compensate media outlets to promote your practice. Advertising and public statements are also limited to registrants holding a Certificate of Registration for Autonomous (or Interim Autonomous) Practice, and every public claim must be accurate and supportable by current professional literature. In short: advertising is allowed, but it has to be factual, clearly labeled, and free of testimonials or direct solicitation.

  • Yes. The College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) permits advertising, provided it's truthful, accurate, and verifiable. Testimonials can't be solicited or used in advertising (though a client's unprompted review on an independent site is fine), you can't promise specific results or make comparative claims suggesting you're superior to other practitioners, and fear-based advertising isn't allowed. You also can't advertise an area of practice without verifiable training in it, and any ad has to be clearly recognizable as an ad rather than disguised as independent content. If a third party places ads on your behalf, you're still responsible for making sure they meet these standards.

  • This is the most common concern we hear, and it's a good instinct, it means you care about doing right by your clients. The discomfort usually comes from associating marketing with manipulation. But marketing for psychologists or psychotherapists isn't about persuading someone to buy something they don't need. It's about making sure the people who are already looking for help can actually find you. When your website clearly explains who you help, what you specialize in, and how to get started, that's not selling — that's a service. The EQ+AI Method™ is built around this principle: everything we create is designed to sound like you, comply with CPBAO and CRPO standards and help the right clients find you.

  • For psychologists, marketing is public-facing communication — your website, social media, directory listings, a general ad campaign — visible to anyone who happens to come across it. Direct solicitation is different: it means reaching out to a specific individual you know or believe needs psychological services, in an effort to get them to become your client. CPBAO's Standards of Professional Conduct prohibit direct solicitation outright, regardless of the medium used, because it targets someone in a moment of potential vulnerability rather than letting them come to you on their own. The practical test: are you broadcasting information for anyone to find, or singling out a specific person because you believe they need help?

    For psychotherapists, CRPO's advertising standard doesn't use the term "direct solicitation" specifically, but its requirement that advertising be truthful, non-coercive, and free of pressure tactics or fear-based appeals would still restrict targeting a specific individual in a way that pressures them into treatment.

  • A full caseload today doesn't mean a full caseload next quarter. Clients complete treatment, move, or stop attending and without a consistent referral pipeline, you can go from a waitlist to empty slots quickly. Marketing builds a foundation that keeps working whether you're actively thinking about it or not. It also gives you the ability to be selective: instead of taking whoever calls, you can attract clients who are the right fit for your specialization. Many of our clients start marketing precisely because they want to stop relying on word-of-mouth alone.

  • We offer fixed pricing options for those that are looking for something specific. We also offer customized pricing based on project type and complexity. After an initial conversation, we’ll provide a transparent quote with no hidden costs.

  • Collaborative, honest, and straightforward. We're here to guide the process, bring ideas to the table, and keep things moving.

The EQ+AI Method™

  • It's how we build every deliverable we offer: AI supports the work (drafting, analyzing, moving faster) while a human layer, built on real marketing experience and your professional standards, makes every real call. It's the reason you can use AI in your marketing without gambling on your license.

  • AI in the EQ+AI Method™ is a tool, not a replacement for human judgment. We use AI to analyze your existing content, learn your communication patterns, and help generate marketing materials that match your voice. Every piece of content is reviewed for CPBAO and CRPO compliance and clinical accuracy before it goes live. AI helps us work faster and more consistently — it doesn't make ethical decisions. That's where the EQ side comes in: 20 years of marketing experience applied to the specific context of regulated psychological practice in Ontario.

  • Yes. The Voice Blueprint™ service trains an AI model on your actual writing, your speaking patterns, and the language you use to describe your work. We don't use generic templates or one-size-fits-all prompts. The AI learns how you explain things to clients, the phrases you return to, and the tone that feels natural to you. The output sounds like you on a good writing day — not like a marketing agency wrote it for you.

  • We never input client data, session notes, or any personally identifiable information into AI tools. The AI is trained on your public-facing content — your website copy, your professional bio, your published writing, and recordings you provide of yourself describing your approach. No client information is ever part of the process. Our privacy practices are aligned with PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) and CASL (Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation) requirements.

  • We offer flexible pricing based on project type and complexity. After an initial conversation, we’ll provide a transparent quote with no hidden costs.

  • Collaborative, honest, and straightforward. We're here to guide the process, bring ideas to the table, and keep things moving.

Pricing & Services

  • It depends on whether you want to do it yourself or have it done for you, both are real options here.

    Self-serve tools and coaching start at $199 and go up to $550/month for ongoing support.

    Full-service management, where a team builds and runs everything for you, starts at $4,500 for the initial build, plus $875+/month ongoing (ad spend and hosting billed separately).

  • Industry guidance suggests allocating 5–10% of your target annual revenue to marketing. For a solo practice aiming for $150,000 in annual revenue, that's roughly $7,500–$15,000 per year, or $625–$1,250 per month.

  • It depends on the channel. SEO (search engine optimization) typically takes 3–6 months to show meaningful ranking improvements. Paid advertising can drive inquiries within days. Content marketing and social media build authority over time — most practices see consistent traction after 3–4 months of regular publishing. The Partnership™ is designed for practitioners who want ongoing support through this process, so you're not guessing at what to do next.

Working Together

  • It depends on which service you choose, but the general flow is: we start with a discovery conversation to understand your practice, your specialization, your goals, and your comfort level with marketing. From there, we conduct research (competitive analysis, keyword research, audience analysis) and build your strategy or deliverables. You review everything before it goes live. For the The Partnership™, we meet regularly to review performance, adjust strategy, and keep your marketing moving forward.

  • For one-time services (The Workshop Series, The Visibility Scan), you'll need 1–2 hours for the initial discovery conversation and time to review deliverables. For The Partnership™, expect about 1 hour per month for our check-in sessions, plus any time you choose to spend reviewing or approving recommendations. The whole point is to take marketing off your plate — not add to it.

  • Yes, although Rose+Thorn specializes in Ontario due to CPBAO & CRPO expertise. Services are available to Canadian psychologists & psychotherapists elsewhere, with provincial regulatory review required.

    If you're a psychologist or psychotherapist elsewhere in Canada, we can still help with marketing strategy, we'll just need to review your province's specific advertising regulations together. Our core methodology (the EQ+AI Method™) applies regardless of jurisdiction.

  • Not without real protections in place, and not without you knowing about it first. While you're an active client, I won't take on another practice offering directly competing services in your specialty and specific geographic area we define together as part of your agreement, unless I have fully separate, dedicated teams handling each account, so your strategy and data never cross over. If that ever happened, you'd hear about it from me directly, in writing, beforehand.

    And regardless of any of that: your confidentiality doesn't expire when the exclusivity does. It's protected for a full year after we stop working together, no matter why that happens.

CPBAO Compliance

  • Standard 6 of the CPBAO (College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario) Standards of Professional Conduct, 2024 governs how psychologists and behaviour analysts communicate with the public, including advertising. It requires that all advertising be accurate, not misleading, and not appeal to clients' fears or anxieties in ways that could be exploitative. It also requires that you can substantiate any claims you make about your services or qualifications. Notably, Standard 6.3(e) prohibits using testimonials to promote a registrant's practice. Together, these provisions create a framework for ethical marketing that protects the public while still allowing psychologists to make their services known.

  • No. And this is one of the most misunderstood rules in psychology practice marketing. Standard 6.3(e) of CPBAO's Standards of Professional Conduct (2024) prohibits testimonials from being used to promote a registrant's practice (including testimonials from clients, former clients, or their friends and relatives). This isn't a grey area: even a star rating counts as a testimonial if you use it in your advertising.

    Here’s what the standard doesn't prohibit: clients leaving reviews on their own, on third-party sites like Google or Lumino Health. Those reviews can exist — provided you never request them, never influence which ones get published, and never use them in your own advertising (including linking your ads to a review page).

    The distinction that matters: the prohibition covers testimonials from your clients about your practice. A psychologist sharing their experience as a client of a business service — say, a marketing consultancy — isn't a clinical testimonial. That's why we can publish what our clients say about working with us, and your clients can't be quoted saying anything about working with you.

    If you're ever unsure whether something crosses the line, CPBAO's Practice Advisory Service exists for exactly this question.

  • Under CPBAO guidelines, avoid: claims you can't substantiate with evidence, guaranteed outcomes (e.g., "I will cure your anxiety"), misleading credentials or specializations you don't hold, appeals to fear or vulnerability designed to pressure someone into becoming a client, and comparative claims about other practitioners. Stick to factual descriptions of your qualifications, your approach, your specialization, and how to contact you. If you're unsure whether a specific claim crosses a line, that's exactly the kind of question we help answer.

Have a question that's not listed here?
Reach out at hello@roseandthorn.ai — we're happy to help.

A Few Quick Questions

So our first conversation is useful, not generic. No pitch, no pressure, just context.