How to find a therapist
One of the uncomfortable ironies of life is that the more we might need a therapist the less able we are to jump through the hoops it may take to find one. If we are in a crisis, we might be stuck in a fight flight response with our prefrontal cortex offline and unable to make choices.
There are many ways one could go about finding a suitable counsellor or Psychotherapist. If we are in a bad place, we may ask a friend or relative if they have someone they have had a good experience with. This strategy can work, but just because one person gets on with a particular therapist does not necessarily mean that you will.
Another choice is to search the various directories out there such as:
These directories allow you to search by location and modality or presenting issue. You can often filter by whether you require short- or long-term work and whether you prefer to work online or in person.
It can be useful to consider your budget and how willing you are prepared to travel. Is the race or gender of the therapist important to you? You might look at how much experience a particular therapist has, what level they are qualified to and whether that are part of a professional body.
Having a therapist belong to a professional body is useful in that they will have signed up to follow a particular code of ethics and it gives you someone to complain to if you have a grievance.
Often, we will want to see a photo of the therapist to try and get a sense of whether we feel this is someone we can trust. Perhaps the therapist has a website, blog, or YouTube channel we can use to get a sense of them.
How important is the type of therapy they deliver? There are many different types of therapy including Person centred, Psychodynamic, Cognitive Behavioural therapy, Gestalt, Transactional Analysis and Integrative. Before knowing what sort of therapy works for you, you may need to give it a go and find out.
If you do try a style of therapy and it does not work for you take some time to reflect on what it did not work. The knowledge you gain of knowing what does not work for you can be invaluable second time around.
It might be useful to consider what it is about yourself that you need help with and find a therapist that specialises in that area. Are you having a problem with thoughts, feelings, sensations, or behaviour? Different modalities may focus more heavily on one area over another.
It might be that you have something specific you want to work on such as anxiety around public speaking or exam stress or it might be that something is not quite right and you want help finding out what that might be.
Whatever the issue it is likely that there will be someone out there with experience in that area. The important thing is to find a place where you feel safe and a person you feel you can trust. Once you have found some one you can try them out.
Once you have an established relationship its worth giving it a fair go before leaving or moving on to something else. Therapy can often be a bit of a bumpy ride. Sometimes when things get a bit uncomfortable it could be a sign that things are working.
