Finding The Best Therapist For You
Finding a good therapist can be challenging. That’s true whether you are looking for a therapist in Folsom, El Dorado Hills, New York, Orlando, or Beaufort (population 14,000).
But even more difficult is finding someone who is also the best therapist for you. In this article, I 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 who works well with you.
Before moving on to discuss these steps, it is important to know what makes for good therapy. That is, the sort of therapy that leads to success.
It turns out that this topic has been studied for many years, and the conclusion is pretty straightforward. The factor that best predicts therapy success is the quality of the therapeutic relationship.
More precisely, do you feel understood by the therapist? Does the therapist genuinely care about helping you, rather than coming across as just another patient to check off the list of people seen that day? Does the therapist appear competent and skilled? Lastly, does the therapist have a reasonable plan for resolving the problems, the specific concerns with which you struggle?
You don’t want to work with someone who is just making it up as they go.
Other factors influence the outcome, but none are as important as the four just mentioned.
With these criteria in mind it is important to know that research shows the following carry little to no weight in determining the outcome of therapy:
The professional degree of the therapist. LCSW, LMFT, MD, PhD all perform about the same
Years of experience. After five years or so of experience, most therapists perform about the same. There are exceptions, of course, but as a rule more years of experience does not mean better outcome.
The type of therapy practiced by the therapist. Again, there are exceptions, but generally the specific mode of therapy the clinician practices is not a large factor in determining success. On the other hand, if someone says they perform some strange mix of vodoo/zombie therapy that should be a red flag.
With that in mind, let’s look at how you can go about finding the best therapist for you.
ONE
Interview several therapists on the phone. If you wish to use your insurance (many, perhaps most, therapist do not take insurance these days) contact your insurance carrier and ask for a list of therapists that are on their ‘panel.’ These are therapists that you know will take your insurance.
If you do not care about using your insurance, go to the Psychology Today website, and search for therapists in your city. You can filter your search results by criteria that matter to you including the therapists sex, languages spoken, religion, speciality, etc.
Find several that look like good candidates and then visit their websites to get a better sense of who they are and how they work.
With a handful of potential therapists you are ready to make calls. Any therapist worth working with should be willing to talk to you on the phone, for free, for ten minutes.
Ask if they are taking new patients, do they work with folks who struggle with anxiety, depression, or whatever you wish to work on? What is their approach to helping with these issues?
You will leave with a good sense of whether this is someone you want to sit down with and get to know better.
TWO
Make an appointment with at least two therapists. For face-to-face meetings, the therapist 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?
This is a more detailed discussion than what you had with them on the phone.
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 particular 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 to both 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.
three
Look for a therapist who has a lot of experience working with the issue with which you are struggling. Yes, I know, earlier I mentioned that years of experience are not very important. But I was referring to years of general practice as a therapist.
This refers to something more specific - experience with helping folks who struggle with one particular type of problem.
Think about it this way, if you were interested in getting help with interpersonal problems, you would look for someone who spends a great deal of time helping folks who struggle in this regard. Someone who spends most of their time helping teens with eating disorders would not be a good fit.
That same logic applies to your search.
Avoid a therapist who claims to have numerous specializations. Most therapists will have experience with half a dozen (or fewer) areas of emotional distress. If a therapist claims to specialize in ten or more areas, be cautious.
Again, think of this the same way you would if you were looking for a surgeon to perform a heart valve replacement. You would be much more confident of the doctor who specialized in that procedure than the one who also did face lifts, tummy tucks, and spinal fusions.
four
Find a therapist who talks.
I know, this 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 focused on the client.
The basic idea is that your therapist needs to be willing to engage you genuinely. To do this, he or she will need to talk with you, respond to your questions, and 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).
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 how they go about helping the people they work with. 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).
SUMMARY: 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.
To make things a little easier, I’ve included some links below to a variety of online therapist directories.
If you are seriously considering working with a therapist, don’t put it off because selecting someone competent seems daunting. Finding the right therapist is as simple as following the steps outlined above. It takes a little time and effort, but the payoff makes it well worth your energies.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us
https://www.theravive.com/forcounsellors/sign-up/welcome-page.aspx
http://www.christiancounselordirectory.com/
