Building a Brick and Mortar Therapist Community

Contributed by Vera Fleischer, MA, MFT

Being a therapist in private practice is my profession of choice, and it can also be profoundly isolating. When I was still a psychotherapist in training, I had colleagues around me all the time. This changed once I stepped out on my own and rented my own office space. I missed having a community of colleagues around.

Being an expat can also be alienating and isolating. I had this experience twice—once as a German living in the United States and again now, being back in Germany as a U.S. citizen after having lived in the United States for over 20 years. Between 2015 and 2019 I had a private practice in San Francisco, California, and as of 2020 I now have a private practice in Cologne, Germany. When I moved back to Germany, I brought with me my dream of having a communal practice. This is the story of how that dream became a reality.

In 2019 I visited a colleague’s office which incidentally was right around the corner from where I lived in San Francisco. It was in a Victorian building typical for the city. Most of these buildings are residential but some have been turned into commercial or mixed-use spaces over the years. There were several rooms and a communal kitchen with a table and some chairs. I was immediately smitten and felt inspired to eventually have my office in a place like this – this being an office suite with a communal kitchen and several offices where I don’t have to feel as completely isolated as in my own office. Even though the office I rented was in a big building with lots of other small businesses all around me, including many therapists, I still felt pretty anonymous going in and out of there. I wanted something more intentional: a shared physical space where therapists could have their own independent practices while still having colleagues around.

For the next six months I looked for a similar and suitable office space in San Francisco. I didn’t find the right one which, in hindsight, was probably a good thing because my resolve to return to my home country of Germany was growing stronger by the day, and in December of 2019 I actually made the jump. By March of 2020 I was settling into my new apartment in Cologne, Germany—right when the first COVID lockdown started. Now I was glad for another reason that I hadn’t signed a lease on an office suite in San Francisco: People were no longer working in offices.

During the summer of 2020, the first lockdown temporarily lifted, I started seeing clients in person again out of a Cologne office I rented by the hour. This was meant to be a temporary solution until I got my own office, preferably an office suite which I could share with colleagues. I ended up staying there for over five years because it was convenient.

By the beginning of the year 2023 I felt pretty confident that COVID and its lockdowns were safely behind us, and I started looking for office suites in Cologne. The first one I looked at was on Hohenstaufenring—one of the segments of the ring-shaped road that has replaced the former city wall, as is common in medieval European cities. I liked the nice-sized office with hardwood floors but was taken aback when I found out that, were I to rent it, in addition to rent and a hefty security deposit I would have to pay a so-called Provision, which is a commission for the real estate agent, in an amount similar to the security deposit. This was my introductory lesson into the world of commercial real estate in Germany.

I knew that I didn’t want to pay a Provision so I focused my search on units that were free of commission. That year I found a space that I liked for many different reasons but it was on the ground floor and there were bicycles parked in front of the windows. I couldn’t imagine doing therapy while people might be locking or unlocking their bikes directly outside of the room. This was when I realized that I wanted to be higher up than the ground floor.

I now had multiple requirements for the office space: centrally located, no commission, five therapy rooms, a full-size kitchen (not just a nook), a waiting room or area, hardwood floors, ideally wheelchair accessible. All told, I visited probably about 50 office spaces in central Cologne. A couple more times I came close to signing a lease but couldn’t come to an agreement with the respective landlady.

During this process I also learned a lot about German real estate customs and regulations and figured out all the structures and policies I would need to have in place in order to make this work. I had some help along the way: An American colleague had created a similar model in a major European city and inspired me a lot. I asked her for guidance multiple times. There was also a German therapist in Cologne who rented an office to a colleague of mine and whose brain I picked at least once.

Finally, in July of 2025 I found the office suite that would work, and wouldn’t you know it: It was on Hohenstaufenring as well, just like the very first office suite I had looked at. This one was about a block from the first one. It’s a great location and in the ZIP code I had been focusing on. There was no commission. It was on the third floor and had lovely tall windows facing the ring road and looking out at plane trees. It even had a wheelchair ramp. There were only three rooms plus a kitchen, and the rent was a little higher than I had budgeted. But somehow the landlady and I came to an agreement after several months of negotiations. It wasn’t really that difficult of a negotiation process, it just took a really long time.

Additional walls and doors were put in to create the correct number of rooms for me in early 2026. New bathroom fixtures were installed. April 15, 2026 was my official move-in date. Tax Day, as the Americans among you will recognize. Even before then I had started advertising the offices on local classifieds platforms. I had taken photos of the empty rooms and “furnished” them using AI. At least two parties signed subleases with me without ever having seen the completed rooms.

By May 1st my first subletter moved in. I had barely finished furnishing that room. Some people signed leases that didn’t start until a little later. By the end of May another subletter moved in, and in mid-June two more followed. By July 1st all the rooms were fully rented, and the practice was bustling. There are now a total of ten therapists, including myself, working in the office suite. We are not a group practice, and everyone runs their own independent practice; what we share is the physical space and, increasingly, a sense of collegial connection. Two of my subletters who are renting their offices full-time decided to furnish their own rooms; the other three and the common areas I furnished. At least one person remarked that the rooms looked notably similar to the AI photos I had created when the office suite was still empty. I tried! Also on July 1st, the signage with all of our names went up on the outside of the building which was a big deal.

I am now a kind of office manager in addition to being a therapist. I call myself the matron of the suite. Every day I am there I check the paper towels, toilet paper, etc. and restock as needed. I probably take out the trash and empty the dishwasher more often than others. And I am very happy to have colleagues around every day and no longer be stuck in an isolated office by myself. The architecture created the possibility for community. I also feel more grounded and settled in this country in which I was born and raised but in which I have felt like an alien. Creating this communal space has cost me a lot of courage, blood, sweat and tears and also given me a sense of belonging.