How do I find the right therapist, how do I ensure a good fit with them? Elsewhere in my writing, I refer to the importance of a strong working alliance between client and therapist for helpful therapy outcomes. This can foster trust, encourage openness, and lead to meaningful progress. A poor fit can in contrast impact your desire to engage and make therapy less productive. But, how can you know that your therapist will be a good match for you? Here are some considerations on how therapists will vary, to support your thinking.
Types of therapist
A starting point may be to consider the type of therapy you’d be comfortable with. Another two of my insight articles explain differences between counselling and psychotherapy, and provide brief descriptions of the most common forms of therapy. Some therapists work in a structured, business-like fashion. Others literally leave the room wide open for you, to “see what comes up.” If you’re unsure of what your therapist actually does, ask them for a clear explanation. Often, they will be specialised in working with a particular problem. Examples include couples counselling and sex therapy, for which a therapist will have had additional training.
Connected to this, the methods in which your therapist is trained will likely impact their therapeutic style. This is about how they come across in their interactions with you. Therapists will vary in their degree of warmth, directness, how relational (i.e., personable) they are, and readiness to offer challenge and confrontation. You might seek someone that will give it to you straight, in no-nonsense, authoritative terms. Conversely, you might be in need of a more reassuring, gentler kindness and softness. There will also be an element of who the therapist is, regardless of their training. Therapists are people too, outside of their work!
‘Safe spaces’
It’s of paramount importance that your therapist is someone you think you can feel reasonable emotional safety with. The work of therapy explores vulnerable, uncomfortable places. It tugs at parts of you that perhaps feel shame, regret, embarrassment or guilt. Your therapist should be able to hold these in a patient way that doesn’t add to already difficult feelings. They should be someone you feel you can be with you while you sit with the discomfort. Where they challenge, it should be sensitive to timing and to the emotional temperature in the room. In my personal opinion, a good therapist will not immediately hard sell a ‘safe space’ and assume your trust with a flood of reassurances.
Matching with your therapist
What about cultural ‘matching?’ Do you find the right therapist in someone culturally aligned with you? First, of course, it’s vital that your background, values, and identity are respected. ‘Cultural competence’ is about respecting that which has shaped your experiences and continues to create meaning, value, and purpose. This is about your life, as you wish to live it. Most therapy training now addresses cultural competence directly. It’s an ethical requirement under my accrediting body, the BACP. However, interestingly, some research suggests that a cultural match between client and therapist actually has little impact on the effectiveness of therapy (e.g., Ertl, Mann-Saumier, Martin, Graves and Altarriba, 2019). Despite this, you may still want to find someone that innately understands your faith, sexuality, or ethnicity (as examples) because they share it. That’s perfectly valid!
For my own practice, I indicate my readiness to work with LGBTQIA+ clients as part of my professional profile. As a gay man, I have experienced some of the identity conflicts, political climate, language and terminology, and unique everyday challenges that permeate LGBTQIA+ life. I have also invested time reading about the psychology of our lives and what’s necessary to work with gender, sexual and relationship diverse people. Such clients may bring specifics they will know I can readily, instinctively be with. Research shows that LGBTQIA+ people, particularly young people, collectively experience poorer mental health outcomes (e.g., Liu et al, 2023). This is largely due to ‘minority stressors’ and additional personal developmental tasks we have to face like growing into acceptance with ourselves. Anything that can ease the process is of great support.
Reviewing progress
Finally, it’s worth mentioning how common it is for therapy to reach places where it feels ‘stuck,’ where progress in therapy slows down. You’ve been going for months, and nothing’s changing. You might start to question whether your therapist is a good enough fit or even worse, incompetent. This ‘stuckness’ is so common that psychotherapist Mary Jo Peebles has written a book for therapists called ‘When Psychotherapy Feels Stuck!’ Often, when you get to this stuck place, you’re actually deep into the places where meaningful change can really arise. However, your therapist should always be open to reviewing how you work together. Exploring different ways of working together might provide a shift.
In closing
I hope you find these brief considerations helpful for you to find the right therapist. Good luck with the task. If you would like to explore working with me, I welcome you to be in touch.
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