Best Guide to Find a Therapist
5-minute read time
Finding a therapist can take time, but it's worthwhile to find the right fit. Unfortunately looking for a therapist can be a frustrating experience. In this article we help provide a roadmap to finding the right therapist for your needs.
Want to find a therapist for your insurance or budget?
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Where Can I Find a Therapist?
There are multiple places to begin looking. You can start by using PsychologyToday, where you can filter your preferences by insurance, type of therapy, gender, etc.
Google searches can pull up therapists in your specific location too.
But before looking, first decide if you want in person therapy or telehealth.
If in person, consider how far you're willing to travel. Telehealth allows you to work with any therapist licensed in your state, which greatly opens up your options.
You also need to determine if you'll use insurance for therapy. Your insurance company may have a provider list you can browse.
Not sure about the cost of therapy? Read more here.
Finding a Good Therapy Match
We often tell new clients that there are two things to consider when finding a therapist:
Their personality
Their expertise
For a provider like a doctor, personality isn't too important. But consider just how crucial it is for therapy - not only are you spending lots of time with this person, but the ability to collaborate as a team is key to therapeutic success.
Getting a personality match is pretty simple, you know it when you have it.
The issue occurs when clients don't listen to their intuition about their therapist. It's nobody's fault if we don't vibe with our therapist.
Therapist Expertise
Personality is important, but it's not everything. It's not uncommon for a client to "get along" with their therapist, but also feel stuck and that "all we do is talk about things." This is where expertise comes in.
Yet expertise is kinda complicated in therapy, let's break it down a bit:
Training - The official training a therapist gets usually focuses on particular issues, such as social anxiety therapy or marriage counseling. Now it gets complicated because there are literally hundreds of these trainings... but common ones include:
Approach - How a therapist uses their training. Therapy needs to feel personal, and good thing! Otherwise your therapy session would feel scripted and robotic. But the tradeoff is only some therapists do this well.
Style and Values - Every therapist has their own "style." Some therapists give homework, while others are more "go with the flow." Some are more secretive about their personal life, others talk too much about themselves...
Also consider how important therapist identity is to you. Maybe you feel comfortable with a male therapist, a black therapist, or LGBT therapist.
Yet also keep in mind therapy is a place to overcome our discomforts. If you find a therapist with a good personality, their identity might not matter as much.
What Kind of Mental Health Support Do You Need?
So we know how important personality is, and the role of a therapist's training. Let's now focus on what you actually need support with.
How do you know if you need help coping with depression? Or if you have social anxiety?
It can be hard to determine what mental health issue we need support with.
Instead let's look at what we call presenting issues. Here are some examples of presenting issues:
Experiencing feelings of worthlessness, or a loss of interest in things you typically enjoy
Anxiety in certain situations that bring excessive worry or body tension
Being haunted or triggered by past events
Struggles in your romantic relationship that hurt your well-being
Now we're not expecting you to diagnose yourself, but knowing what issues you're experiencing will help guide you.
This will lead you to a therapist with the right expertise to work with your presenting issues.
You can also identify support needed by your therapy goals instead of presenting issues.
Here are some examples of how to explore your therapy goals:
If therapy was working, how would you know?
What kind of life goals or accomplishments would become possible?
What challenges would you be able to overcome?
Find a Good Therapist Fit
When having an initial consultation with a therapist (don't work with someone who doesn't offer this) treat it like an interview.
You are considering hiring someone for the job of supporting you. That's a big, important job!
Now maybe that feels uncomfortable, they're the expert after all. But you are the expert of yourself, even when you're struggling.
In typical consultations the therapist asks you questions, and they should. It's very important that they learn a bit about you and what you're looking for. The therapist's questions should tell you a lot about them.
If you still want to know more, then consider asking them the following questions:
How would you approach my struggle with (social anxiety, trauma, etc.)?
What types of training or experience have you had?
Have you ever worked with someone in my situation before?
When To Leave a Therapist
Leaving a therapist can be hard. It can be easier if you you've met your goals and gotten the most out of the sessions. But sometimes it feels like a messy breakup.
Generally, never leave a therapist for reasons that you haven't communicated with them.
Therapists are people, and like all people they have their own quirks, faults, and personal challenges. Therapy is supposed to be a place where these things are investigated. If you've tried to communicate an issue and they are not able to investigate it with you in a productive way, that is a reason to stop therapy.
Find a Therapist Today
Wellspring Connection may be able to help you find the right therapist. We have therapists that specialize in:
You can check out our diverse team of therapists here
When you contact us, you'll hear directly from our office staff to do a pre-screening.
We'll check your insurance information and get a general sense of your presenting issues and/or therapy goals. This helps us to schedule a consultation with the best match.
If we aren't able to match you with a Wellspring Connection therapist, we will share external therapy referrals for you.