For many people, just deciding to see a therapist at all is challenging. If you’ve already passed that hurdle—congratulations! You’ve taken the first step toward change for the better. But…how do you know whom to see? What should you look for when choosing a therapist?
The answer depends on several factors. It seems obvious that your goals play a role: if you’re anxious, you want someone who knows how to treat anxiety; if you have OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), you should look for someone experienced in that; and if you seek marriage counseling, you need a couples therapist. Many therapists are experienced with more than one condition, so the therapist doesn’t have to specialize exclusively in yours. But they should at least have a solid working knowledge of the area and enough experience treating it successfully that they’re confident they can treat you, too.
Yet the above is far from the complete answer. Within the broad group of therapists who deal with your issue, how do you know who’s best? Considerations of convenience will narrow the list. For example, who’s closest to your location? Who takes your insurance? Who has appointments that fit your schedule? A related issue is whether you prefer in-person or online appointments. For many people, there’s no substitute for up-close-and-personal conversation with a trusted, caring human in the safe, reassuring environment of the therapy room—but research shows there’s no significant difference in effectiveness between in-person and online psychotherapy. So, if you need or prefer to see someone online, that’s a perfectly acceptable option, too.
More substantive factors are important, as well. There’s a dizzying array of approaches to therapy, many of which are known by abbreviations. CBT? DBT? IFS? ACT? EMDR? The list goes on and on. Part of choosing well is finding a good fit between the type of therapy the person practices and the type of therapy that will be most effective for you. But don’t worry, you don’t have to make that determination alone. Your preferences are important, but in addition, part of the art of therapy and one of a therapist’s most important jobs is to get an accurate feel for you and match you to the most appropriate modality.
Don’t worry about it too much, though, because here’s a surprising fact: Researchers have studied what makes therapy effective and discovered that the type of therapy used—whether CBT or psychoanalysis, for example—doesn’t really matter. Put another way, no specific form of therapy has been shown to be more effective than any other. (That is on average. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, though, for any given individual there might well be a best fit.) Instead, the most important contributor to a successful outcome in therapy is the relationship between client and therapist. So—as long as the person is appropriately licensed and qualified to help—the most important thing you should look for in choosing a therapist is someone you feel comfortable with. Someone you can open up to and explore your deepest feelings with. Someone whose abilities you’re confident in. Someone you trust to never judge or abandon you, and who will listen to you and be there for you no matter what you tell them. That is what makes therapy successful.