DH and I have decided that we need some relationship counselling. Lots of arguing, DH seems particularly short tempered and we are going through some stressful times, which are only going to get worse (DH's mother has Alzheimers and now terminal cancer, plus some other work & personal issues). We have tried counselling in the past and neither of us feel we got anything out of it - we had 6 sessions and I didn't feel that the counsellor understood our problems at all. It wasn't what we argued about, it was the way it happened. She seemed completely won over by DH and told us far too much about her personal life. Considering that I feel DH can be an emotional bully, we both came away feeling like she thought he was great and I was just moaning. He said she was on his side, but has since accepted that she was rubbish and easily manipulated. For instance, an issue at the time was that I was at home with 2 pre schoolers and he would start a fight, ranting about what I hadn't done (be it ironing, filing away papers, etc), yet when DH pointed out to the counsellor that he had said that we could have a cleaner an au pair but I didn't want one, she actually said how she would love a husband who 'let' her have a cleaner or an au pair - really that wasn't the issue, I didn't want my husband shouting at me because his shirts weren't ironed. Obviously I was not good at getting my point across.
Anyway, the point of this post was, how do we go about finding a counsellor who is any good? I have no one to ask for recommendations, relate are a bit far away from us. The lady we saw previously works in our small town at a community advice place and was free, although supposedly qualified! There are a couple of others in our town, or a long list in the nearest city, but choosing from a long list is even more daunting. Should I be asking anything in particular? Should they be using a particular methodology? There are counsellors and also a psychologist - is a psychologist different, and would that be overkill for what we want?
Thanks