Beyond the Couch: What This Session Taught Therapists About Money - Adaiyalam'26 Chennai Mental Health Fest

Therapy sessions rarely come with a syllabus on taxes and investments, which is exactly the gap Mr. Vinay (Partner, ABCD) set out to fill. The focus stayed practical throughout: money, saving, and why accounting matters for psychologists running their own practice. The session opened with the fundamental language of money like income, expense, asset, and liability. Anything spent in the process of earning is an expense, and from there the discussion moved into the basics of profit, tax, and revenue.

An asset, the speaker explained, is anything that continues to give a return for more than a year, its value lies in use that extends beyond a single accounting period. And in accounting terms, one simple rule holds: your assets should always equal your liabilities.

A key question for any practising psychologist: how is your practice actually structured? The session laid out the three common options

·    Sole proprietorship

·    Partnership / LLP

·    Private Limited Company

Private limited companies were flagged as particularly tax-efficient, taxed at 25% compared to the 35% rate for public companies.

Taxes, Thresholds, and the Fine Print

The session then moved into the practical mechanics of filing:

·    The threshold for mandatory income-tax filing sits at ₹2.5 lakhs

·    Both the new and old income tax regimes were explained and compared

·    The tax slab structure was broken down in detail

Attention then turned to Section 44ADA, the government provision allowing professionals to declare income and pay tax on a presumptive basis with a threshold of ₹75 lakhs for income received via cash and UPI.

Participants scanned a QR code linking to a short questionnaire, and the speaker used the responses as a jumping-off point to unpack the difference between saving and investing; a distinction many in the room hadn't thought through carefully before.

Tracking, Saving, and Where the Money Should Go

From there, the conversation turned to the discipline of tracking expenses, followed by a broader look at the stock market and different investment strategies. The session also covered GST, Professional Tax, and TDS, along with practical ways to legitimately save on tax.

The discussion then got specific about where money can actually be put to work — bonds, fixed deposits, PPF, and trading all came up. The guiding principle offered was simple: invest in products returning more than 10%, since that keeps you comfortably ahead of inflation. Having a clear investment strategy, the speaker stressed, isn't optional, it's essential.

As a rough starting framework, the session suggested allocating around 40% to fixed deposits, with the remainder spread across a diversified mix of other investments.

The session closed with an open floor for participant questions.