You hold space for everyone.
Who holds space for you?
Held is a peer accountability group for therapists ready to stop isolating behind closed doors — and start growing alongside colleagues who understand the weight of this work.
It was a Tuesday at 9:47pm. I was cross-legged on my couch with my laptop balanced on a throw pillow, trying to decode a prior authorization denial for a client who'd been waiting six weeks for a diagnosis that would change her treatment plan. My notes were three days behind. I had eight sessions the next day.
I wasn't burned out, exactly. I was something quieter and harder to name — the specific exhaustion of someone who knows exactly what healthy coping looks like, and hasn't done any of it in four months.
I thought about calling a colleague. But what would I even say? "I'm struggling" felt too vague. "I don't know if I'm a good therapist anymore" felt too true. And anyway — I didn't have colleagues, not really. I had contacts. People I'd wave to at a conference. People I'd refer to, occasionally. Not people who knew what it was like inside my particular Tuesday.
Then four of us got on a Zoom call and nobody led with their credentials.
It started in 2023 as an experiment — four therapists from different modalities and practice settings, meeting bi-weekly to do something we'd never actually been trained to do: be accountable to each other professionally without the performance of supervision. No one was evaluating anyone. No CEUs were being earned. It was just four people who had decided, quietly, that isolation was costing them too much.
By month three, each of us had made at least one significant practice change we'd been avoiding for years. One restructured her intake process. One finally set the rate she'd been afraid to charge. One left a group practice that was billing in ways that kept him up at night. One — me — started writing again.
By month six, we had a waitlist of people who'd heard about the group through word-of-mouth. By month twelve, we had a name.
"The first time someone in the group said 'I don't know what I'm doing with this client' and nobody flinched — that was the moment I understood what we were building."
— Reina Nakashima, LCSW · Cohort 1 member
What actually changes when you're held.
The research on therapist burnout is not subtle. A 2022 study in Professional Psychology found that 45% of licensed clinicians report significant professional isolation — and that isolation is a stronger predictor of burnout than caseload size, trauma exposure, or hours worked. The variable that matters most isn't how hard you work. It's whether you feel known by people who understand the work.
Peer accountability changes that variable directly. Not therapy. Not supervision. Not another CEU webinar about self-care. A structured, ongoing relationship with colleagues who show up consistently, who track your goals, who notice when you've gone quiet.
A structure simple enough to trust,
intentional enough to matter.
Six months. Eight therapists. One circle.
Each cohort runs for 24 weeks — 12 bi-weekly 90-minute sessions. Groups are intentionally small (6–8 members) and deliberately mixed across modalities, so you're not just talking to people who already think like you.
Peer consultation, not supervision.
No one evaluates you. No one signs off. This is horizontal — colleagues to colleagues — which is exactly why it works for people who've been performing competence for years.
Goals you actually keep.
Each session opens with a check-in on the one professional goal you named last time. Not five goals. One. The specificity is the point.
Lightly held, not tightly managed.
Sessions are facilitated by a trained Held moderator for the first three meetings — then the group takes over. The arc is intentional: dependency to autonomy. By month four, you won't need us in the room.
A private channel, not a group chat.
Each cohort gets a private async space for brief check-ins between sessions. Structured prompts, not open-ended noise. The goal is continuity, not another inbox.
90 minutes every two weeks.
That's the only ask. Show up, be honest, track one goal. Everything else emerges from those three constraints.
report significant professional isolation — and isolation is a stronger predictor of burnout than caseload size, trauma exposure, or hours worked per week. Source: Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2022. Peer accountability directly addresses the variable that matters most: feeling known by people who understand the work.
What people say when they stop
performing okay.
"I'd been in practice for eleven years and I genuinely could not name a single colleague who knew what my work felt like from the inside. Not one. After three months in Held, I had seven."
Priya Mehta, LMFT
Solo practice, trauma & grief · San Francisco, CA
"I got licensed in 2021, right when my supervision group dissolved. I spent two years pretending I had the collegial support I was supposed to have. Held was the first honest professional relationship I'd had since my practicum cohort."
DeShawn Calloway, LPC
Newly licensed, adolescent therapy · Atlanta, GA
"The goal-tracking piece sounds small until it works. I'd been saying I was going to raise my rates for two years. My Held group knew that. Four sessions in, they asked why I still hadn't. That question changed my practice more than any workshop ever did."
Margaret O'Brien, LCSW
22 years in practice, private pay transition · Boston, MA
"I've done peer consultation before. It usually turns into a clinical case discussion — which is useful, but it's not the same as someone asking how YOU are doing with the work. Held stays with the practitioner, not just the client. That's the difference."
Tomás Reyes, PhD
Clinical psychologist, university counseling center · Austin, TX
"The exhale when you realize you're not the only one struggling with this — that's what Held is."
Join the next cohort.
Start growing alongside people who get it.
Cohort 5 begins the week of March 16, 2026. Applications close February 28. We review every application personally — not to gate-keep, but to make sure each group has the right mix of perspectives.
Apply for Cohort 5Sliding scale available — no one turned away for cost.
- Six months · 12 bi-weekly sessions
- 6–8 therapists per cohort
- Cross-modality, cross-setting mix
- Trained facilitator for first 3 sessions
- Private async channel between sessions
- Access to Held resource library
The Therapist Loneliness Inventory
A free, 12-item self-assessment designed specifically for licensed clinicians — drawing on Maslach's burnout framework and collegial isolation research. Takes 8 minutes. Gives you language for something you've probably been feeling for longer than you'd like to admit.
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