How do I Find The Right Therapist? It’s a lot more like dating than you think.
Finding the right therapist - a mythical quest on par with “The Odyssey.” If you talk to any person about what obstacles are keeping them from starting therapy, you will almost always hear them say: “It’s so hard to find the right therapist!”
I agree. But is it really that hard or are we approaching it the wrong way?
First, let’s break down what the hell the “right therapist” even is. Usually, people mean two things when they say this: 1) Someone who has the skills to help me with my particular issue; and 2) someone with whom I am going to be able to connect.
The first part usually feels pretty easy. You go on any number of therapist directories and you can filter your search by your “problem,” and a whole bunch of therapists will pop up who say that they have expertise in treating that particular issue. You want to go to therapy to work on anxiety and they say that they specialize in treating anxiety - great.
But the second part is really where people get hung up. What we are all wanting at some level is to have the ability to accurately predict whether or not we are going to connect with the therapist before we even have the first session and maybe even before we have the consultation call. Are they going to understand me and my culture? Will they be super weird or friendly and relatable? Will they be too friendly and it will feel like a waste of time? Will they judge me? Am I going to be safe with them?
We are going to look at their profile picture, read the language on their profile or their website, all to see if, not the content, but the style of how they present themselves matches up with how we see ourselves. Essentially, we’re doing a medical “vibe check.”
And this is how we date too, isn’t it? You might look to see if the content of their profile has things on it that you resonate with; do they also like traveling? What’s their taste in music? Does it look like we share a similar cultural background? But, what probably makes you swipe right is a whole combination of unspoken factors that you can’t even really put your finger on - you’re trying to feel out whether there might be a connection.
But how do you really know? You of course, go on a first date. Or maybe, you text a bit first or you have a phone call or FaceTime, all of which serve to gather more data on that whole connection thing. If it seems like there’s a fit from there, then you go on a real first session; oops, I mean first date and you see how it goes. You don’t know yet if you’re going to get married, but you had a take a chance on that first date to even see if there’s the potential. You had to take a risk.
But we didn’t use to have all of that data available to us before going on a date with someone. Maybe you got a “referral” from a friend or you happened to know someone in your extended friend circle and then you have some first-hand information. But maybe you found a partner by seeing them in a local park or at a bar. They didn’t come with a bio page, you just had to skip straight to that “vibe check.” You noticed whether you found them physically attractive or not, if you thought that someone who dresses like them would connect with someone who dresses like you, you noticed how they carried themselves, etc. And from there, you had to take a risk.
If you’re lucky enough that the person wants to go out with you, you start dating and only eventually do you know that they are the one you eventually want to marry. But at first, all you had to know is that you were curious enough and that there were enough green flags to ask them out on the first date.
My bold objection to the way that we are trying to find a therapist these days and why it feels so impossible, is that we are trying to figure out if this is the person we want to marry before we even have the first phone call or the first date. Finding the right therapist is not about reading a bunch of bios endlessly until you have a magical connection with a website and suddenly know, “this is the one!” Finding the right the right therapist is about changing the question altogether.
Instead, we should be asking ourselves, “How do I find a therapist I am curious enough about to write that first email, to pick up the phone.” It’s not about finding “the one,” it’s about taking the first step to schedule a first date.
There’s a lot less pressure when you only have to be certain enough to know you want to try.
So my thoughts are: go with your gut. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and give a therapist a call. That first call will tell you a lot. And you don’t have to spill your guts right away and tell your whole story - you don’t do that on a first date and you don’t need to do it on a consultation call either.
The green flags you look out for are similar to a first date also:
Did they keep their appointment? If they needed to change the time did they communicate well?
Did they display good boundaries?
Did they listen well and ask good questions?
Did they respond sensitively and with care?
Did they make plans for the next meeting?
Did they follow through?
In short, you don’t have to know it’s the one right from the jump, you just have to be willing to take it one step at a time.
Talk soon,
Christopher
(These posts have never and will never be written by or with the assistance of AI technology. The therapy relationship is with a real person and I believe that should permeate all aspects of our interaction, even if we never end up speaking directly).