Working as a psychologist in free-floating, when a person himself is looking for clients, is not a business, it is self-employment. Nevertheless, to describe how much the profession can support a psychologist, I use a business metaphor. Yes, I will continue to write, first of all, about Russian realities. Working as a psychologist is a business with long-term investments. This is the option when at first a lot of money, time and effort are invested in the brainchild and for some time you have to work with returns close to costs (in the case of working as a full-time psychologist somewhere) or even with income that does not pay off the investment for a long time (this is an option for promoting yourself on the psychological services market independently). In general, training to become a practical psychologist is a very expensive thing, and almost everyone who became a psychologist with significant personal practice earned money for a long time in some other field or had someone who sponsored him. As for me personally, I worked for a long time as a private tutor with children. The paradox is that only 1-5% of everyone who studied to become a psychologist at a university work at least somewhat in their specialty. Those few who continued to work in their specialty also often leave the race over time. Only a few remain. Hence the acute shortage of practical psychologists in Russia. In case some random person interested in psychology suddenly drops in to read this article, I’ll clarify that obtaining a higher education to become a psychologist is only the tip of the iceberg of training costs. Why is that? Yes, because we are all human, which means we are all a little crazy!) Of course, to varying degrees, but those who want to become psychologists, and at any moment also dream of helping people, are definitely a lot and even very crazy. This means that the path to your own relevance in the profession lies through finding a path to yourself. And it is expensive - many, many hours of personal psychotherapy with an excellent practical psychologist. And at the same time, you still have to pay for regular (preferably several times a week at least at first) supervision, which costs even more than psychotherapy. Supervision from a professional psychologist, and not from your classmate who thinks she knows everything! And here we remember that these same psychologists are in short supply. And in order to find your guide on the path to yourself, you have to throw away a lot of money and time on, let’s say, not the shortest paths that not the most professional psychologists take their clients. Well, now the positive that you have been waiting for for so long, reading my complaints about the high cost qualifications of a practicing psychologist!))) So, despite all the investment costs and the long period allotted for payback, working as a practical psychologist is profitable in the long term. This is one of the few professions in which you can work at 50-120 years old with no less, and rather even more efficiency, than at 20-30 years old. And if a psychologist has been working for decades, then the profession really feeds him. Dear reader, if I didn’t scare you, and you want to go through everything and become a practical psychologist, then I sincerely wish you to cast aside all doubts and set off on a long voyage on the waves of practical psychology . It will be stormy at first, of course, but the result is worth all the storms endured!;)