Headshot Requirements for Every Therapist Directory: Psychology Today, GoodTherapy, TherapyDen & More
- Sergio Gomez
- Jul 23
- 3 min read
If you're building or updating your private practice profiles, you've probably noticed that every directory asks for a photo — and none of them make it easy to figure out exactly what they want. Some publish a technical spec. Others just say "professional and approachable" and leave you guessing. Here's what we've found for the directories Bay Area therapists use most, and how to get one photo that satisfies all of them at once.
Psychology Today
Psychology Today is the directory most therapists prioritize first, and it's also the one with the most specific — if inconsistently documented — photo guidance. Sources vary on the exact minimum, with some citing 400x400 pixels and others citing higher minimums, but the consistent guidance across the board is the same: your photo will be cropped into a circle in search results and on your profile, so composition matters more than any exact pixel count.
What that means in practice: center your face in the frame, keep your head and shoulders filling most of the shot, and avoid anything important near the edges or corners — a wide environmental portrait that looks great uncropped will lose exactly the parts that make it work once Psychology Today's circular crop is applied. Upload the highest-resolution version you have; the platform will scale it down, but it can't add detail that isn't there.
GoodTherapy
GoodTherapy doesn't publish a strict minimum pixel size the way Psychology Today attempts to. Its own guidance focuses on quality over specs: a clear, well-lit, professionally taken photo with a background that doesn't compete with your face. In practice, that makes GoodTherapy the most forgiving directory technically — but it also means a mediocre photo has nowhere to hide behind a generous size requirement. A high-resolution, well-lit headshot clears this bar easily.
TherapyDen
Like GoodTherapy, TherapyDen doesn't publish a specific technical requirement. It's a smaller, more community-oriented directory, and its own advice to therapists leans heavily on approachability: natural light, a genuine expression, and a photo that feels like you rather than a corporate stock image. TherapyDen profiles tend to reward warmth over polish — worth keeping in mind if you're choosing between a few different shots from the same session.
Insurance panel directories (Alma, Headway, and similar)
If you're on an insurance panel, you likely have a profile photo requirement buried in a provider portal somewhere too. These platforms typically ask for the same basics — a clear, current headshot, professionally lit, without sunglasses or group photos — but rarely publish a pixel spec at all. The safest approach is the same one that works everywhere else on this list: deliver your highest-resolution file and let each platform downscale it.
The one photo that works everywhere
The pattern across every directory on this list is the same: nobody is asking for a dramatically different photo, they're asking for a high-resolution, well-lit, correctly composed headshot — and then applying their own crop or display rules on top of it. That's exactly why a single well-shot session covers all of them. When we photograph therapists, every session is delivered as a high-resolution file well above any directory's stated or unstated minimum, so the same image works whether you're uploading to Psychology Today today and adding GoodTherapy or TherapyDen next month.
One practical habit worth adopting: before you upload anywhere, preview how the photo will actually display — especially on Psychology Today, where the circular crop can cut off things that look fine in a square or rectangular preview. A few extra minutes checking the crop saves you from realizing months later that your ear is the most prominent feature of your listing.
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