How to Find the Wrong Therapist
When searching for the right therapist, be sure to question your assumptions.
A thousand years ago, when I was in my late 20s, I decided the time was right to go to therapy. Why the time was ‘right’ is a topic for another day, but I might have been influenced at that particular time because my roommate was seeing a therapist and she was the first person close to me who I knew was in therapy. But how to find a therapist? Easy peasy! I would just go see my friend’s therapist. After all, I quite liked my friend, and she quite liked her therapist. Through some law of conservation, or dispersal or something, it would follow that I would quite like her therapist, too! Right?
Yeah…no. While my first meeting with said therapist wasn’t a disaster, it was a disappointment. I can’t explain why, except to say, it just wasn’t the right fit.
Since that time, I have searched for, selected, and seen a few therapists, with varying degrees of success with regard to “fit.” Since becoming a therapist, I often reflect on that experience as I talk with and meet new clients and listen to their stories of finding a therapist. Some people research very little, or not at all. I’ve had other potential clients gather so much information that that refer to their “dossier” of therapists. The truth is, either end of the spectrum — and everything in the middle — has the potential to lead either to success or bust.
I believe you should research, but within reason and with a focus on practical issues. Getting the answers to logistical questions can help eliminate therapists who can’t meet your basic needs. Questions about cost, insurance, availability, location, and frequency of sessions are more important to ask up front than more subjective queries.
But most clients, to greater or lesser extent, begin to imagine their therapist before they even start to look, and in that imagining, there is some thought that starts with something like “I want a therapist who…” Let me share some ways that thought might end based on what I have thought as a client, what I’ve heard from potential clients, and what I’ve heard in discussion with other therapists. And why sometimes what you think is The Most Important Thing, might not be.
I want a therapist who…
…is recommended to me by someone I trust.
See above! Haven’t you ever wondered why, for example, the sister you that love and respect is friends with that nasty person? Or you find yourself shaking your head in confusion by the relationship between your best bud and the guy they’ve been dating for three years? We all have different relationship needs, and make no mistake, you and your therapist will be forming a relationship. While most therapists are (I hope!) empathetic and non-judgmental, we still come with our own personalities, our own quirks, and our own ways of being that exist in the therapy office and which may or may not suit you. So sure, take that recommendation, but don’t take it as gospel.
….uses this treatment modality I read about.
Again, not a necessarily a bad piece of information to have, but not always an indicator that the therapist who says they practice CBT versus the one who practices IFS is going to be the best fit for you. I mean, there are a lot of abbreviations out there, and research has shown that — for the most part — what a therapist practices is less important than how a therapist is with a client (see “personalities” above) with regard to therapeutic outcomes. Besides, there is often overlap in these treatment modalities — same ideas with different names. So if you, for example, want someone who “does EMDR” for your trauma and you disregard someone who “does Memory Reconsolidation,” you may miss out on a whole swath of therapists who can help you. You’d miss out on me, for instance, and that would be tragic.
…has had the same experience as me.
You might be thinking: “Won’t my therapist understand me better if they also….” Not necessarily. Actually, a surface “shared experience” might blind both you and the therapist to the uniqueness of your own experience; there can be the danger of assumption. It’s not the experience itself that engenders empathy; it’s the emotions in response to the experience that I relate to. I may not have your experience, but I have also felt sadness and fear, guilt and shame, excitement and joy, pleasure and pain, etc. My job isn’t to find commonalities between myself and my client so that we can riff off that; it’s to understand my client’s singular thoughts, feelings, and complexities of their experience and help them make sense of it.
…looks like me.
Now, this one gets tricky because we absolutely need more persons of color working as therapists! A more diverse pool has the benefit of attracting clients who may otherwise not seek the help they need. So, by all means, if seeing something of yourself in your potential therapist gets you through the door, get yourself through that door!
That said, I point you to the above paragraph on shared experience, and also this, from a Black psychoanalyst: “One might argue that my race as an African American would have to be part of the conversation with my patients. This fails the grasp that race is a readily available area of exploration for same-race pairings as much as for interracial dyads….An African American woman…in analysis who presented with difficulties in romantic relationships, would constantly say to me with conviction, ‘You know what I mean?’ Of course not, but yes I did ‘know’ in the broadest context of being an African American in this country. But her words were a shorthand that I should understand: she was ascribing me knowledge about her as a fellow African American woman. Implicitly acquiescing to my patient’s subtle pressure to resonate with her based on our being African American women would have bypassed exploring in depth the particulars of her narrative.”(1)
I want to impress upon you that none of the above criteria are wrong ways to assess a potential therapist (clickbait article title notwithstanding), but you’ll not want to make too many assumptions about fit based on a single criterion.
In the end, the best way to assess a new therapist is to set up a consultation call (most therapists provide this for free), and if that goes well, to meet them in person. Sometimes one session is all it takes to commit to a therapist, but it’s okay to take two or three sessions to find out if the match is a good one. If it’s not, it’s okay to move on. Yes, it’s an investment in time and money, but this is your mental health we’re talking about. Don’t simply settle for the person who’s right in front of you if you know it doesn’t feel right.
(1)Powell, D. R. (2018). Race, African Americans, and psychoanalysis: Collective silence in the therapeutic situation. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 66(6), 1021–1049.
Disclaimer: Information contained on this page is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment or consultation with a mental health professional.