How did you choose a therapist?

[oister]

I've been looking on the bacp website but there’s a lot of different people to choose from, if you have had therapy/ counselling how did you choose who to contact?

I left a message for one person but they didn’t get back to me, I don’t know if it would be needy to call again, this is exactly why I need a therapist! (This is a joke and actually the least of my problems)

As an aside, I see a lot of people recommending that someone has therapy/ counselling on various threads. Do they think this will help because they have done it and it has helped or is it just a line that’s trotted out when someone seems to be struggling?

I'm a therapist. I don't do 5 minute chats on the phone with people, instead I do a really low cost hour assessment as it's really important that they see what the setting/room/therapy/me is like before doing any sort of commitment

Added to which it feels really inauthentic on the phone and there's always a risk it's hard to contain as they can get upset when they think about what's bringing them to therapy. That's too shit a service to do it between clients and I just hated it.

So after about five years of doing calls I changed it for the last 20 to one hour assessments and that's worked much better.

I was told what kind of theory I needed and googled. I then had a session with someone and because of another issue he said he couldn't help and I needed someone with certain training. One was in Australia so wouldn't have worked with the time distance. Another I liked her photo and felt she'd be nice. Had an initial contact. She was. Saved my life.

I had access to free counselling years ago after an abortion

I didn't feel like I needed to go but I did anyway

It was a complete revelation and brilliant and I just spoke to her for ages about all sorts of things

I was able to see her a couple more times

The next time I needed a counsellor was through work so I got 6 free sessions

Another time was a referral and was great

Another time was a referral and I didn't connect at all with her so never went back

The last time was work related and was really good too

You'll know straightaway if you click with them pretty much

I’m a therapist and yes it’s best to select someone who is with one of the accredited bodies regulated by the professional
standards agency. There are 5 or so in the uk. This will give you protection and reassurance that the therapist works in an ethical way and won’t harm you, and if they do, you have a way of complaining/remedying this through the ethical body they are accredited with. It also means they have reached a certain level of experience through training and clinical work.

if you want to get help with tools…then avoid person centred counsellors.

there are several modalities to choose from. I would ask if people can help you with tools if that’s what you are looking for, because only some therapists work in that way. Therapists help you to psychologically unravel and understand your story and how you have come to where you are, this can enable the change, rather than a focus on tools necessarily.

therapists take time to come back to you as they are mostly In session and may just deal with enquiries once a week. Most will offer an initial session to see if you can work together.

therapy is about you doing the work to increase your self awareness and knowledge about yourself, which leads to choice to change, rather than the therapist “fixing” you, which is a common misconception. The therapist supports your journey of self discovery.

if I were looking for a therapist I’d also look out for someone who can do EMDR as it’s really useful to work with the body and mind together IMV.

As PP said counselling is more about work in the here and now, whereas psychotherapy is about the unconscious and how past experiences are affecting your present, often very early developmental experience.

Psychodynamic or psychoanalytic can be very helpful in unraveling childhood issues and linking to present day issues. I see an analyst and it's been life changing for me, hard work for sure, but deep down life changing. So I'm disagreeing with the poster who said analysis/analysts are the least helpful... It just takes time and is not a 6 week solution. Also different folks, different strokes.

It’s quite amazing how many therapists have really unappealing photos or awful websites. Or no photos of themselves at all. If someone thinks that a really unappealing photo is going to draw clients, I tend to think they aren’t going to be very good therapists.

Look for someone with a lot of experience and look carefully at their training. Check they have had to be in Therapy themselves for the duration of their training. Otherwise the training won’t be much good and they will still have loads of unresolved issues themselves .

I got a recommendation through a friend who I know rated her therapist. It’s only since I’ve been seeing my current therapist that I really realise how mediocre the couple I saw previously were.

My therapist specialises in schema therapy, which has been a total revelation for me. It’s very good for dealing with childhood trauma and current relationships without being at all navel-gazing or ‘tell me about your mother’.

Thank you all so much for all the advice, I have sent out 4 emails this morning to try and arrange initial calls/ meetings and explaining a bit about what I want to get out of it.

I got a lot of clarity about what I do/ don’t want from reading these responses. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to share their experiences.