How To Tell When A Therapist Is Right For You
Some of my friends who are new to therapy don’t understand how I got to my place of extreme comfort with my psychiatrist back home.
I would tell my friends that it’s like Dr. H. could read my mind and knew what was making me anxious before I even told her what’s on my mind. She knew every little bit of my history, medical and otherwise, and always knew exactly what to say. I always left her office with a series of practical action steps to figure out everything I need to do to feel better. And, thanks to her guidance, I’d spent years only going to therapy a couple of times a year, something that helped me feel more normal.
But ever since I moved to Chicago - nearly three years ago - my parents have urged me to find a local mental health professional. My psychiatrist is uncomfortable with prescribing medicine across state lines, and she’s also not super comfortable with virtual appointments over years instead of as a special case in the pandemic. Even so, I put off the search for a very long time, afraid of having to form a new bond or being unable to find someone just like Dr. H.
After enough nagging, I started looking for someone new. I did introductory call after introductory call, getting increasingly disillusioned, and before the pandemic, I finally settled for a therapist I didn’t really like, if only to feel like I got my family’s pressure off my back.
The new therapist told me to give up whenever I asked her about anything. If I was frustrated at work, she told me to quit my job. If I was having trouble with friends or family, she told me to distance myself from those people or cut ties entirely. She never encouraged me to work on things, only to avoid what I didn’t like, often in unreasonable ways. And even though avoidance often feels good in the moment, it’s not good in the long run.
When the pandemic happened, and I ended up adopting and later returning a puppy, I knew that she wouldn’t be able to understand my mixture of guilt, shame, grief, and relief to have given up my puppy. So, after that incident, I made the decision to not return to her again.
That put me back at square one. But unlike last time, I utilized a resource I should have thought of right at the beginning - No Shame On U. I reached out and asked for a recommendation, and sent a short paragraph about my diagnoses and current things I’m trying to overcome to the doctor I was recommended to contact.
The doctor called me back right away, but with bad news. She said that I was too complicated of a case for her to handle and then gave me a recommendation for another doctor at a different practice.
I almost didn’t trust her. Why should I trust her word if she made me feel like all my hard work to be as normal as possible wasn’t enough? But I looked up the new doctor because she had a name that reminded me of Lord of the Rings. Corny, I know, but I sent that same paragraph in an email, already doubting that things would work.
But for the first time, they did. I did an introductory call with the nerdy-named doctor running the practice, and she made me feel valid in my concerns and like she could actually help me. She used a system like I had encountered when I sought emergency help in my breakdown seven years ago - she assessed me over the phone and matched me with a therapist.
I was wary - first of all, because I liked the doctor herself, and that was so rare. I was also nervous to see a therapist instead of a psychiatrist even though there is a psychiatrist with the practice who could help me with medication changes if I need that help. I was also wary because of the way she described the therapist she matched me with, D. - about my age, enthusiastic, with plenty of experience in trauma but not done with her degree.
In the end, I decided to trust this doctor and set up an appointment for an appointment with D. - and it’s been one of my best decisions in a long while. It’s been years since I’ve been to what I consider non-emergency therapy - the kind of therapy where I can talk about everyday problems on a regular basis instead of only seeking help instead of in the middle of a crisis. And it’s taken a few weeks of seeing D. for me to realize how much I’d missed it.
The first session had some of the awkwardness I was afraid of, some of the getting-stuff-wrong because D. didn’t know my whole history like Dr. H. does. But even in the first session, she was saying things that resonated with me. I started taking notes that first week and have continued the process ever since, and after a month of therapy, I’ve got a nice assortment of new ideas to try and things that work.
D. has a very different style than Dr. H. A session with her feels more like a conversation than me monologuing about things I’m worried about and then receiving solutions. D. is creative, knows new therapeutic techniques I haven’t seen before, and is full of gardening metaphors and knowledge about the brain to explain exactly why certain thoughts are happening.
Because I’m not seeing her as an emergency case, or only once every several months, I am able to talk about the little things that bother me. I’ve realized that, for me, wellness doesn’t mean ignoring the small things and waiting until they turn into huge things. I’ve felt so much calmer over the last few weeks since I’ve been able to tell D. so many things about daily occurrences that I used to brush under the table. She is able to see patterns in these occurrences and draw lines between them that I’m unable to do on my own, and instead of offering me general guidance about how to battle my negative thoughts, she walks through my thoughts with me in real time, so they don’t have a chance to build up and become terrifying.
D. is different from Dr. H. in a lot of ways. She’s peppy where Dr. H. is subdued, chatty where Dr. H. prefers to let me fill the silence, learning new techniques along with me. I realized that what I didn’t need was a copy of what has worked before, but a therapist who understands me at this stage in my life and is willing to help me get through the trauma I’ve faced and the negative thoughts I have on a consistent basis.
As for how to tell when I found the right therapist, I found it just as easy to know that D. was right for me as I knew that other therapists in the past were wrong for me. Everyone has their own style, and just because a therapist is right for one person (a coworker of mine loves the therapist I was seeing previously and didn’t like), doesn’t mean that they’re right for everyone. What’s important is to try different introductory calls, learn about different therapists and psychiatrists, and do it while you’re not in an emergency situation so you’ve got someone to go to when the shit hits the fan.
Even though I’m not at the point where I feel like D. can read my mind, I have gotten so comfortable with her that I have shared all sorts of things I didn’t think I’d be able to talk about with someone new. I’ve asked her some of my big scary questions, and she’s offered to help me with some things Dr. H. said she wasn’t the best person to consult about.
I’ve now seen D. once a week for a month, and I want to keep this new schedule. It helps me, during the week, to know that I don’t have to ignore things or bottle them up. I know I’m getting good help that works for me, and that my life is improving as a result.
I can’t offer any generic recommendations. Everyone is different when it comes to therapeutic preferences, but I encourage people reading this to try to see what you like, and be flexible, and hopefully it won’t take long to find the right therapist for you.
Ellie, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.