How to Choose a Therapist: Ensuring a Good Client-Therapist Relationship

Finding a therapist can be understandably nerve-wracking. Even if you’ve not yet sat on a therapist’s couch before (physically or virtually), you probably know that it requires opening up to a stranger—a trained professional, but a stranger nonetheless—who you might find yourself telling things that are too personal to tell a friend, a spouse, or a parent. Finding any medical practitioner these days can be overwhelming, and a weekly or bi-weekly dive into your most private thoughts, feelings, and experiences is, if not more intimate, at least intimate in a much different way from a yearly blood draw. So if you want to invest in your mental health as much as you do in preserving your physical health, of course you want the therapist you find to be the right one.

But how do you know which therapist is right? There are countless therapists out there, with different personalities, methodologies, and worldviews. Searching through a list of local practitioners you find online can become a fruitless task that goes nowhere. You leave a browser window open with the name of a therapist in it and it disappears when your computer reboots. You write down a name and lose the scrap of paper. You get ready to finally call someone and find they’re no longer practicing. No one therapist seems better than any other, so you forget about the whole thing.

There are ways, though, to avoid this gridlock. These following tips will help you understand what to look for in a therapist and how to ensure a given client-therapist relationship will set you up for the long-term personal improvement that therapy promises.

Establish Your Foundational Needs

You may hold beliefs about yourself and the world which you consider foundational for achieving happiness. It can be helpful to have a therapist who shares those values. For example if you’re a devout member of a particular faith, you might find a level of comfort missing if you pursue therapy with a therapist who doesn’t share your religion. You may find that the therapist is not sensitive to, or even aware of, problems your community faces, or does not understand the nuances of your community enough to be helpful in some matters. Or the therapist may have a different viewpoint about what constitutes living a good life that is incompatible with your intuitions. A therapist who shares a particular philosophical framework may have a better understanding of what you’re going through in your day-to-day experience, and what you’re going for in your attempt to live better.

Of course every situation, client, and therapist is different. It’s not written in stone that a therapist who shares your faith or other identity-based characteristics will necessarily be the most helpful, or that one who doesn’t, won’t. But having a clear idea of what’s non-negotiable in your life can, at least, be helpful in setting a baseline for what a good client-therapist relationship looks like.

Know When to Keep Looking

Not every first therapy session goes well. Maybe there’s something about the therapist’s demeanor that’s off, maybe they seem distracted, or are focused on a concern you don’t find important. You walk out of the session saying, what was that?

This shouldn’t put you off from therapy in general, any more than walking out of a hair salon with an expensive catastrophe on your head makes you give up getting your hair cut. When the stylist misses the mark, you can either give them another chance or look for someone else. Same with therapy.

Of course there’s a lot more at stake with a client-therapist relationship. You definitely shouldn’t take hearing things that challenge your assumptions, right off the bat, as a sign things won’t work. But if you feel, session-over-session, that the therapist is missing something, or suggests treatment you’re uncomfortable with (such as recommending you to a psychiatrist for medication if you’ve established you are not open to being medicated) there’s nothing wrong with looking for a therapist who you feel better about. Find the balance between giving the client-therapist relationship some time, and calling it when it’s just not working.

Think About The Implications of Recommendations

Say a friend or sibling has mentioned how helpful they’re finding therapy, and you want to try it. Your instinct may be to ask for their therapist’s number. If a person close to you speaks so highly of that therapist, of course that will ensure a good experience, right? But you might want to think twice before going this route.

A therapist is bound by law and professional ethics not to share information about you with anyone else outside of specific legal circumstances. Still, your comfort level may diminish if you know that your therapist is, for instance, getting a different message about a social problem you’re having while working with both you and your friend. So it may be in your interest to seek a recommendation from someone more personally removed from the therapist you plan to visit.

Looking for internet reviews works, too but it’s important, as with any online assessment, to recognize that you don’t know who the person applauding or criticizing a given therapist is—so take everything with a grain of salt.

Make Sure to Get Onboarded For a Great Client-Therapist Relationship

Finding a therapist you can comfortably open up to, who understands where you’re coming from, gets where you want to go and can help guide you there, can take some legwork. But it’s worth spending time on. Beyond that, though, half of the client-therapist relationship is in your hands.

Therapy takes dedication and effort. Knowing how to successfully approach therapy—what to do and not to do—can be a challenge, and has a learning curve, even with an excellent therapist. This is why more therapists are implementing client onboarding.

These days, before your first therapist appointment, often the office will send you a link to client onboarding videos. This short-form, specially-crafted informational content will guide you through everything you need to know to get the most out of your visit to a therapist. Making use of these resources is key to starting strong, and cultivating a great client-therapist relationship over time, so get onboarded and get ready—with the right therapist to help, improving your life is in your hands!