Jeremy Gordon

Sentia Compass Framework

Find Your Centre. Build Your Practice.

A structured, reflective framework for counsellors and psychotherapists who want to establish, develop or renew an ethical, sustainable and personally meaningful private practice.

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Private practice involves more than attracting clients or completing administrative tasks. It asks you to make decisions about your professional identity, clinical work, income, visibility, workload, systems and future direction.

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The Sentia Compass Framework helps you step back, understand your current position and choose a direction that fits who you are, how you practice and the life you want your practice to support.

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Build the practice that is yours to build

There is no single correct model of private practice. A practice that works well for one practitioner may feel financially unworkable, professionally incongruent or personally unsustainable for another.

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The Sentia Compass Framework begins with your Centre: your values, identity, strengths, responsibilities and sense of purpose. From there, it helps you examine the wider practice, identify what matters most and translate reflection into practical action. It can be self-driven using the Compass Framework Publications, or supported with ad hoc or structured mentoring.

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The aim is not perfection. It is a practice that is sufficiently aligned, well-founded and sustainable to move forward with confidence.

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Who is the framework for?

The framework is designed for counsellors and psychotherapists who are:
 

• Considering private practice

• Preparing to launch

• Establishing a new practice

• Struggling to develop a consistent caseload

• Reviewing fees, services or positioning

• Feeling uncertain about their professional direction

• Managing growth, workload or competing demands

• Renewing or repositioning an established practice

• Returning after a break

• Planning longer-term professional development
   

It can be used independently, with occasional mentoring conversations or as part of a more structured mentoring process.

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The Three Horizons

Every private-practice decision sits within three connected horizons:
 

• Personal Horizon
  Your values, circumstances, energy, responsibilities, financial needs and wider life.

• Professional Horizon
  Your identity as a practitioner, clinical competence, ethical responsibilities, supervision, CPD and future development.

• Practice Horizon
  The services, clients, fees, systems, visibility, capacity and operating model of the practice itself.

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A commercially attractive decision may be personally unsustainable. A personally appealing idea may lack a viable practice model. A professionally ambitious direction may require further training, supervision or time. 

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The framework helps you work towards practical alignment across all three horizons
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Your journey through the framework
 

1. Find Your Centre
   Clarify the Personal, Professional and Practice Horizons that shape the practice you are building.

2. Read Your Compass
   Take an honest, evidence-informed snapshot of your current position across eight connected areas of practice (see details below).

3. Understand the Reading
   Identify strengths, tensions, opportunities, dependencies and gaps without reducing your practice to a score.

4. Choose Direction
   Agree your overall Bearing and select up to three Development Focus Areas for concentrated attention.

5. Build Your Practice
   Turn direction into a comprehensive Practice Action Plan and begin realistic, aligned action.

6. Review and Return
   Review what has changed, learn from experience and return to your Centre before choosing the next direction.

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The Eight Compass Domains

Your Compass Reading considers eight interconnected areas:

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1. Centre Alignment
   The fit between who you are, how you practise and the practice you are building.

2. Clinical Practice
   Scope, competence, quality, supervision, safety and the client experience.

3. Practice Strategy
   A coherent model for services, capacity, income, positioning and necessary trade-offs.

4. Client Development
   Ethical visibility, referral relationships, enquiry flow and sustainable demand.

5. Practice Management
   Reliable systems, records, technology, finance, administration and continuity.

6. Professional Development
   Purposeful CPD, supervision, accreditation and capability development.

7. Professional Presence
   Accurate, congruent and accessible public communication and digital presence.

8. Wellbeing
   Work design, boundaries, recovery, support and the capacity to sustain the work.

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What the process produces

By working through the framework, you can develop:

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• A working Centre Statement

• An evidence-informed Compass Reading

• A clearer understanding of strengths, tensions and gaps

• An agreed Bearing for future development

• Up to three Development Focus Areas

• A comprehensive Practice Action Plan

• A 30-day launch or renewal plan where appropriate

• A regular Review and Return rhythm
   

The Development Focus Areas concentrate your attention. They are not the whole plan. Ethical, clinical, legal, financial and operational actions still need to be included wherever relevant.
 

Five questions for understanding your position

Each Compass Domain is explored through the "5C" lens:

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1. Clarity

   Do I understand what is needed and why?

2. Capability

   Do I have the knowledge, skills, systems or support required?

3. Confidence

   How able do I feel to act, decide and communicate?

4. Consistency

   Does this work reliably in ordinary practice, not only on its best days?

5. Congruence

   Does this fit my values, identity, ethics and Centre?

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The numerical Reading supports reflection and judgement. It does not replace them.
 

Ways to use the framework

You can choose your own way through the process taking into account your experience and knowledge, time and resource constraints, and personal preferences.

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• Self-guided
  Work through the workbook and relevant tools independently, at your own pace.

• Guided
  Use the workbook independently and book occasional Compass Conversations where reflection, challenge or decision-making would be useful.

• Mentored
  Combine the workbook with one to three structured mentoring sessions during the process, after completing the Compass Reading or during implementation.

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The framework is designed to reduce dependence, not create it. Mentoring is used where it adds clarity, judgement, momentum or accountability.
 

Private Practice Mentoring

Mentoring offers a confidential professional space to think about the development of your practice. Sessions may focus on:
 

• Clarifying your direction

• Interpreting your Compass Reading

• Selecting Development Focus Areas

• Shaping your Practice Action Plan

• Fees, capacity and income

• Positioning and visibility

• Systems and practice management

• Professional confidence

• Boundaries and sustainability

• Reviewing implementation and deciding what comes next
   

A free 30-minute introductory conversation is available (subject to availability) to explore whether mentoring would be useful.
 

CPD and reflective professional development

The Sentia Compass Framework is designed as a structured reflective learning activity. The CPD Guide and Certificate Pack enables practitioners to:
 

• Record the time spent on workbook activities, reflection and implementation

• Identify learning outcomes

• Document how learning will be applied

• Maintain an action and implementation record

• Self-certify their participation

• Request an optional personalised certificate
   

Practitioners remain responsible for checking that the activity meets the CPD requirements of their own professional body. 
 

Seminars and training

Sentia Compass seminars and workshops introduce the principles of centre-led private-practice development, and provide practical tools for applying the framework.

Formats include:
 

• One-hour introductory seminars

• Three-hour interactive workshops

• Half-day training sessions

• Sessions for counselling and psychotherapy students

• Tutor and training-provider development

• Bespoke seminars for professional groups and organisations
   

Training can be adapted for practitioners who are considering private practice, establishing a new practice or developing an existing one.
 

Start with a complimentary workbook

Complete the UK Private Practice Pulse 2026/7 anonymous survey and request a complimentary copy of the Sentia Compass Framework Starter Workbook (Independent Survey Edition).

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The workbook offers a concise introduction to centre-led practice development, including:
 

• The Three Horizons

• An introductory Compass Reading

• Development Focus Areas

• A 30-day Practice Action Plan

• Review and Return
   

Action: Complete the UK Private Practice Pulse and request your Workbook
 

About Jeremy Gordon

Jeremy Gordon is a counsellor, psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and private-practice mentor. He has also been an international business consultant, company director, charity trustee, and has worked as a Personal & Professional Development (PPD) tutor on a counselling diploma course.
 

His work is grounded in person-centred practice and informed by psychodynamic, existential and cognitive approaches. The Sentia Compass Framework brings together reflective practice, professional judgement and practical private-practice development.
 

Jeremy developed the framework in response to a recurring gap in professional training: practitioners may be well prepared for clinical work while receiving limited support with the practical, financial, professional and personal realities of building a private practice.
 

Find your bearings

You do not need to solve every part of your practice at once. Start by finding your Centre, taking an honest Reading and choosing the direction that is right for you.

 

Click a link below to take the next step:

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• Explore Private Practice Mentoring

• Complete the Pulse Survey

• The Sentia Compass Framework Workbooks

• Ask About Seminars and Training
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For further information, or to book an introductory mentoring conversation, contact:

Jeremy Gordon: jg@sentiawellbeing.com​

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Book using the Booking page (select the online, free introductory chat).​​

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Take the Private Practice Pulse survey and receive a free positioning workbook: https://tally.so/r/rjR09o

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