The idea that clients should pay at least a small fee for therapy in order for therapy to be effective has been around for a long time. But it doesn’t hold up as well as you might think.
This is one of those things that I learned in grad school and simply accepted as truth for a long time. And then I was startled when I actually looked into it. Not only does forcing clients to pay even a small amount for therapy not help outcomes, some evidence suggests it makes outcomes worse.