> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.opentherapy.app/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Build your profile > Your bio, qualifications, specialties, media and locations — and the lived-experience signals that drive matching. Your profile is everything a client reads before booking. Edit it under **Settings** in your workspace. ## The parts | Section | What it's for | | ------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------- | | **Photo** | A portrait. Clients scan these first. | | **Headline** | One line under your name in the directory | | **About** | Your bio. Shown at the top of your profile. | | **Specialties** | Focus-area chips | | **Qualifications** | Dated, with the awarding institution | | **Registration** | Body, number and status. Shown as verified once checked. | | **Locations** | Clinics, or a service area for home visits | | **Media** | Portrait, short clips, and a photo gallery | ## Writing a bio The bio is where a client decides whether you sound like someone they could talk to. A few things that work: "I work mostly with adults in their twenties and thirties" tells a client more than a list of modalities. Directive or exploratory, structured or not, homework or none. People are choosing an hour, not a technique. Saying what you don't work with saves everyone a wasted first session. The bio and the first ten minutes of a session should sound like the same person. A bio needs at least 40 characters to save. ## Lived experience This is the part that makes Open Therapy different from a filtered list, and it's worth spending time on. For each of the eight themes, you mark specific experiences as one of: | Marking | Meaning | | --------------- | ----------------------------------- | | **Lived** | You have been through this yourself | | **Worked with** | You work with it clinically | Clients weight these differently, so they're captured separately rather than collapsed into one list of tags. A **lived** marking is the heaviest single factor in whether you appear in someone's shortlist — heavier than a clinical specialty match. Only mark something as lived if it's true. This is the basis on which a client chooses you, and it is the one claim on your profile that a client is likely to raise in the first session. You can also write your experience in your own words. That paragraph is optional and appears on your profile. ## Media Thirty to sixty seconds of you talking. Profiles with one get roughly twice the enquiries. The rooms, the entrance, the waiting area. Useful for anyone anxious about arriving somewhere new. A clip doesn't need production. Say who you work with, what a first session looks like, and one thing you'd want a nervous person to know. Good light and clean audio matter more than the camera. ## Locations and how you work | How you work | What's shown | | ---------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Clinics** | Each site with the days you're standing there | | **Service area** | A city and the suburbs you'll travel to, drawn as a radius on the map | | **Online only** | Your home city, so location filters still place you | Location matching covers every clinic you work from plus everywhere you'll travel, not just your first listed address. Adding your second site genuinely widens who finds you. Session modes are **Online**, **In person** and **Home visit**. Your profile summarises them as *"Online + in person"* or *"Online only"*. ## Focus areas and specialties Specialties are chips, and they feed both directory filters and matching. Be specific rather than exhaustive. A list of thirty makes it harder for the right person to recognise themselves in it, and it doesn't rank you any higher. ## Writing on Open Therapy Under **Writing** in your workspace you can publish two kinds of post: | Kind | For | | ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | | **Post** | Writing about the work | | **Practice update** | News — a new location, a waitlist opening, a change of hours | Posts appear on your profile with a reading time, in Open Therapy Updates, and at their own address so you can link to them. You can save drafts and schedule. ## Next Define what you offer and what it costs. Claim your handle and skip the introduction fee.