The process of starting a therapy is often scary, and it can be daunting to decide who would be the best to work with in terms of a therapist.
Fortunately, you don’t have to decide immediately, and most therapists often provide a free consultation session so that you can get a sense of whether the therapist feels like a good fit. Given that therapeutic rapport (the relationship you have with your therapist) is one of the most consistent predictors of positive treatment outcomes, it is helpful to choose a therapist that you work well with.
This post offers some possible green flags to consider when deciding who you would like to work with in therapy.
A good therapist understands what you are struggling with
A good therapist will make you feel listened and understood. Often times, when we are struggling with mental health struggles, there’s many strong emotions and thoughts that are jumbled in our mind. It’s confusing for us to really lay out what’s going wrong even though we know something isn’t right.
A therapist who truly understands will be able to reframe and piece together a couple of sentences that gets to the core of what you’re struggling with. If they provide a summary or reflection of what you said, and you think to yourself: “Yes, that’s exactly it!” – then that therapist understands your issues well.
A good therapist validates your struggles
We tend to be pretty hard on ourselves and we might go into therapy thinking “it’s my fault,” “I’m to blame,” and “I shouldn’t feel this way.”
A good therapist will make sense of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. They will be that compassionate person to highlight that you are indeed struggling, while simultaneously offering a way forward.
Sometimes, people think acceptance and change are mutually exclusive – that it’s one or the other. However, having someone validate that you are indeed dealing with something hard, can be a way to increase self-compassion and offer the self-esteem needed to make a change.
A good therapist is collaborative
When you go to a doctor, the approach is usually directive – the doctor says “do X, Y, and Z” and then you go about your merry way.
On the other hand, therapists and patients work together in a collaborative approach to move them towards a common goal. A good therapist will often encourage you to share what works and what doesn’t work to make sure that you always have a say in how the treatment is planned.
Moreover, a good therapist will ask about your goals because they understand that success looks different from person to person. One’s person version of happiness is going to be different from another person.
The therapist is the expert of psychological treatments, and you are the expert in your own lived experience.
A good therapist offers hope
When someone has been struggling with mental health issues for years, it’s easy to feel hopeless about their situation.
A good therapist will offer a sense of hope that the treatment can be helpful. For example, they may talk about the research suggesting that a treatment is beneficial for dealing with the patient’s problems, or discuss strategies that seem like they would be a good fit for the issues.
You may also feel hopeful from the way that the therapist talks about their experience with treating certain mental health conditions. They may really “get it” or talk about past patients with similar problems that have seen benefits from treatment.
Anxious but hopeful is a good place to be at the end of a first therapy session.
A good therapist challenges you
Although a therapist should validate your experience, they should also be realistic in sharing that therapy is hard work. It’s not like medication where you just take it and forget about it; therapy requires commitment and using strategies that benefit us in the long-term and leads to more discomfort in the short-term. Therapists think of treatment like building a muscle or learning an instruments: it takes practice to get the benefits of the skills.
If you feel heard, but also challenged, then this is a good place to be when starting therapy.
A good therapist is open to your concerns
Finally, a good therapist will talk you through the concerns you might have about treatment. They will be genuine and honest with you about the benefits and costs of starting therapy.
They will encourage you to take into account these pros and cons make a decision based on what you think is right, not what other people think is right. In treatment, the ethical principles that is always the most prioritized is the patient’s dignity as a human being.
After you get all the information, you can trust your own inner wisdom to decide whether this feels like a good fit, or if it would be helpful to meet with other possible therapists.
Best wishes,
P
Simply mental health 