Shopping for a Therapist
I had a friend recently call me to tell me that he had been thinking for a while about going to therapy for the first time and was prepared to finally take the plunge. He was curious to hear if I had any advice on how to get connected with a therapist. Immediately, I empathized with him. Starting a journey of healing and growth in therapy sounds great and all, but finding the right therapist – that can be its own journey. This effort is worth it, though. The therapeutic relationship is so important. If you do not trust or feel connected with your therapist, it is going to be very hard, probably impossible, to do good work and make the changes that you want. Research demonstrates that the therapist’s ability to form a therapeutic relationship with their client is more important for positive therapeutic outcomes than their style of therapy or the number of years they have been practicing.
Even as a therapist myself, I have experienced the frustration of meeting with a therapist but not feeling that it was a good fit. Sometimes, it takes trying out more than one therapist to find the best fit. There are some steps you can take to help you on your journey to get connected with a therapist that is going to best meet your needs.
Before scheduling an initial appointment:
Consider what you are looking for in a therapist. For many people, the various identities of a therapist might be a factor that contributes to their decision-making. If you hold minority identities, would it be important for you to work with someone who holds minority identities as well? Do you find it easier to trust members of your own gender? Sometimes, people are in a place where it is important to feel that more immediate connection with someone based on a greater chance of shared experiences and understanding through similar identities. However, meeting with someone who does not share your identities can sometimes be a healing experience. If a female has had negative experiences with males in the past, then learning to trust and develop a positive relationship with a male therapist might be what therapists call a corrective emotional experience. Research shows that matching identities between therapist and client results in more familiarity and comfort initially in the therapeutic relationship as compared to when therapists and clients do not share identities. However, actual therapeutic outcomes do not differ depending on the identities that a client or therapist may hold, regardless of whether they match or not.
If you know what you are specifically wanting to work on or process, then look up therapists who hold specialties in those areas. Most therapists can work with a wide range of presenting concerns. However, many will have focus areas in which they have particular experience and passion. For example, if you are wanting therapy to get help processing the death of a spouse, then try finding a therapist who specializes in grief.
Many therapists offer a free consultation before an initial meeting. This consultation offers you the chance to chat briefly about how they work and what you want to work on in therapy, giving you a sense of whether they might be a good fit for you. Use this time to ask questions and address concerns if you have any.
What to do in your first appointment:
In the first session, there may be a lot you want to talk about, and it may be difficult to communicate everything coherently – that is okay! As much as you can, come prepared to your first session. It could even be helpful to write down what you want to talk about and bring with you to the session. You only have 50 minutes, so you want to make sure that you are making the best use of the time. If you believe you might have trouble staying on track, let the therapist know and they can help with that. Or if you do not really know what you want to work on or do not feel like you have much to say, the therapist can help you with providing prompts and exploring different areas of your life.
Knowing what you want to address is one thing and the place to start. Identifying goals and what you want differently because of therapy is the next step. The more specific goals you have, the better. This allows you and your therapist to be more focused in the direction of your work. If you are wanting to feel less depressed, what would that look like? How would you know if you are not depressed? What would you do differently if you were not depressed? Identifying and reviewing goals throughout therapy also allows you to be able to measure progress over time. Are you moving closer towards your goals? Does therapy seem to be working? If not, what can you do differently? That being said, it is okay not to have specific goals when you start therapy – you can collaborate with your therapist on coming up with goals as you work together.
Just as it is important to communicate what you are wanting to accomplish in therapy, it will be helpful for the therapist to know how you want to use the space and how they can be most helpful to you. If this is your first time in therapy, then this may be difficult to know at the beginning. If you have been in therapy before or as you have a few sessions under your belt in your first therapy, you may have a better understanding. Do you prefer a space to externally process and have a nonjudgmental, third-party sounding board? Maybe you are wanting more active engagement and feedback from the therapist? Often, people are looking for concrete coping strategies. How you and your therapist work together can change over time, so continue having these conversations about what type of approach works best for you.
At the end of the initial session, feel free to let the therapist know how it went. What did you like or not like about it? What felt helpful? How did the relationship between you and the therapist feel? This feedback can be helpful for a therapist as they start to think about their treatment plan and how they are going to work with you now that they have the basic information.
What to do after the first appointment:
Unless there are big red flags from the first session (e.g., feeling judged, not listened to), I encourage you to give your therapist at least another session or two before deciding to try someone new. It is important to have realistic expectations about the first session. Initial sessions can be quite different from ensuing sessions due to differences between the purpose of them. The first session is more about relationship-building and information-gathering. In the first session, many therapists take a comprehensive history of the client, meaning that they will ask about many different aspects of a client’s life (e.g., family life, substance use, medical/psychiatric history). As a result, there may not be a lot of time to really dive into specific areas that the client is wanting to work on. This history helps the therapist understand their client more holistically and gives them more information on the best way to proceed in the next sessions. After the first session, more time can be spent talking about how to move forward and make change.
Going through a first session may provide a relief to talk through things you have held back for a while or instill some hope that you are finally doing something to address your problems. However, it is unlikely that anything significant will change. There is probably not a specific strategy or interpretation from an initial session that is going to solve everything. If anything, you might even walk away from a first session feeling a little worse. That can be the thing about therapy – sometimes, it gets worse before it gets better. By that, I mean that therapy often results in talking about subjects, memories, feelings, etc. that we typically avoid in our daily life as a way to protect ourselves from how those things affect us. In therapy, those wounds will be reopened. Reopening a wound may hurt in the short-term, but that can be necessary so that the wound can actually be fully processed, integrated, and healed.
Lastly, if there was something about the initial session that you did not appreciate, you can inform the therapist. Most therapists do not have just one way of working with their clients, and they are often happy to integrate feedback from the client if they feel like it will still be therapeutic. If you would prefer the therapist to do something different, then ask and see how they respond. They may have a reason for why they did things that way, which may change your mind, or they may switch things up based on your feedback. I cannot guarantee that they will incorporate your feedback, but you are only ensuring that things do not change if you do not say anything!
To start counseling at Sunrise Counseling in Dallas, TX, follow these steps:
1. Contact Sunrise Counseling
2. Meet with one of our caring therapists
Mental Health Services at Sunrise Counseling in Dallas, TX
Sunrise Counseling offers a variety of mental health services in our Dallas TX-based therapy office and offers telehealth therapy to those residing in Texas.. Mental health services we provide at Sunrise Counseling include: