How to Ask for Reviews as a Therapist Without Crossing Ethical Lines

Therapy reviews are a complicated marketing channel. The clients who could write the most useful reviews are also the ones with the most professional protection from being asked. The ethical lines vary by jurisdiction and accrediting body, but the underlying principles are consistent.

The clients you can ask are those who have completed treatment, where the therapeutic relationship is fully closed, and where you’ve maintained appropriate boundaries throughout. The clients you can’t ask are current clients (the asking creates a power-imbalance dynamic), recently discharged clients still in the dependency window, or clients in active distress.

The timing that works is at discharge or shortly after. Not in the middle of treatment. Not as a condition of receiving any service. The ask is its own moment, framed clearly as separate from the clinical work.

The wording matters. The ask shouldn’t position the review as transactional or coerced. Something like:

“Now that we’ve finished our work together, I wanted to thank you for the time. If at any point you’d consider writing a short review of your experience working with me, I’d genuinely appreciate it. There’s no pressure, and your decision either way doesn’t affect anything between us. If you do want to, here’s the link to my Google profile. Whatever you write, in your own words, would be helpful.”

The wording does several things. It frames the ask as separate from the relationship. It gives an explicit no-pressure permission. It points to the platform without dictating content. It thanks the client either way.

The platform matters too. Google Business Profile reviews are generally low-risk because they’re public, visible, and the client controls what they write. Therapist directory reviews (Psychology Today, etc.) sometimes carry stronger ethical guidelines about unsolicited reviews. Check your accrediting body’s guidance before asking on those.

You can also send the ask as a written follow-up rather than verbally. A short discharge email two weeks after the final session, with the same wording. The written form gives the client distance and time to decide without face-to-face pressure.

You can save the wording for the review ask outside my-cbt and reuse it as part of your standard close-out process.

Most clients you ask won’t write a review. That’s expected. Of those who do, the reviews tend to be specific and useful, in their own words, mentioning what they found helpful. Across two or three years of asking at discharge, you accumulate enough reviews to give your profile credibility without ever crossing into the dynamics that make therapy reviews ethically fraught.