Best Therapist For You
Finding a good therapist can be challenging. But even more difficult is finding a good therapist that is also the best therapist for you. In this blog post, and the one that follows, I will give tips that make this search much easier. In fact, if you follow the steps I recommend you’ll be just about guaranteed to find a therapist that works well with you.
Before moving on to discuss these steps it is important to know makes for good therapy. That is, therapy that leads to success. It turns out that this topic has been studied for many years, and the conclusion is pretty clear. The thing that best predicts whether therapy will be successful is the quality of the therapeutic relationship.
More precisely, does a client feel understood by his or her therapist? Does the client feel that the therapist genuinely cares about his/her well-being (i.e., you are not just another client to check off the list)? Does the therapist appear competent and skilled? Lastly, does the therapist have a reasonable plan for resolving the problems with which the client is struggling?
There are other factors that influence outcome, but none of them are nearly as important as the four just mentioned. With that in mind let’s look at how you can go about finding the best therapist for you.
ONE:
Interview several therapists. You can do this on the phone or with a face to face consult. If you interview therapist in person (I recommend you visit three or four therapists) most will charge for their time. This is money well spent. It could save you weeks, or months, of working with the wrong therapist.
Let each therapist with whom you meet know that you are interviewing them to see if they are someone with whom you wish to work. If this offends them, mark that therapist off your list. It should not offend anyone. If you were having a house built you would interview several architects or contractors: none would be offended. Neither should a therapist find this off putting.
After telling the therapist what concerns you are struggling with, and the goals you have, ask how they would go about finding a solution. In other words, how do they work?
Keep in mind that a therapist is really a coach. Just as someone who plays baseball might hire a batting coach to enhance their batting average. That coach would have a certain approach to helping players become better batters, and could describe the strategy to anyone who was interested. So too with therapists. Look for a response that is clear, spoken in English (not psychobabble), and makes sense.
Pay attention both to what the therapist says and how you feel as you discuss these personal matters. If you go away from the meeting thinking the therapist is someone with whom you can relate, and that his or her answers to your questions make sense, put that person on your list of finalists.
TWO:
Look for a therapist who has a lot of experience working with the issue with which you are struggling. For example, if you are interested in getting help with marital conflict look for someone who spends a great deal of time seeing couples in marriage counseling. Better yet, go to a website that shows you who, in your area, has specialized training in marriage counseling (https://www.gottman.com/couples/private-therapy/).
Avoid therapist who claim to have numerous specializations. Most therapists will have experience with half a dozen or less areas of emotional distress. If a therapist claims to specialize in ten or more areas, be cautious.
THREE:
Find a therapist that talks. I know, sounds strange, but some therapists have been taught that they should seldom speak. It’s a throwback to psycho-analysis wherein the patient would do nearly all the talking and the therapist would nod, grunt, and on occasion provide an interpretation (“Ah, I see. You tell me that you were late for work again. I suspect the real meaning of that pattern of behavior is… you hate your mother…. Or your father…. Perhaps both!”). The mysterious silent types are great for classic movies, but best avoided when searching for a psychotherapist.
On the other hand, you don’t want a therapist who is a chatterbox. The focus of therapy should be on solving your concerns, not listening to stories of how your therapist’s great aunt once had a similar problem. Therapy requires an interaction, with the focus on the client.
The basic idea is your therapist needs to be willing to genuinely engage you. To do this he or she will need to talk with you, respond to your questions, offer advice and insights. The exact balance of how much talk and how much listening is helpful, well that is up to you (which is another reason to interview several therapists, so you get an up close and personal sense of their style of interacting).
FOUR: Do not pay too much attention to what degree the therapist has earned (LMFT, LCSW, MD, PhD). Research has shown that there is no meaningful correlation between the quality of therapy and the specific degree a therapist has earned. (I know, sad, because I have a Ph.D.).
FIVE: Be certain to ask questions when interviewing a therapist. It’s fine if you want to know how many people they have worked with who struggle with anxiety, depression, trauma, oppositional teens, and so forth.
You are probably also interested in knowing how they go about helping the people with whom they work. That’s a fair question, ask away!
Perhaps you want to know whether they give advice, or do they mainly listen and help clarify issues (leaving it up to you to decide what to do at that point). Does the therapist have books/websites to recommend?
It's reasonable to ask how long it is likely to take before your goals are reached (although an exact answer to that question requires the power of a fortuneteller, a reasonable guess of some type can usually be made).
SIX: Don’t put too much emphasis on how many years a therapist has been in practice. Why? Because research shows that most therapist do not significantly improve their skills after the first five years or so after graduating.
This is not always the case, but it is the norm.
The reason why most therapists stop improving their skills over the years is that they do not engage in the process of systematic and deliberate self-evaluation. This is not a gratuitous criticism of therapists (graduate training doesn’t teach one how to perform meaningful and practical self-evaluation). If you find a therapist who does engage in continuous self-evaluation of his/her performance, and then uses that information to improve his or her skills, that's terrific. Put a star next to their name.
There you go. Honest, it is as simple as that.
Follow these guidelines and you will dramatically increase your chances of finding the best therapist for you. Just to make things easier, I have formatted the tips from today’s post, and last week’s post, into a single checklist (or see the end of this article).
