Is My Therapist a Good Fit For Me?
So you’ve decided to seek out a therapist and after many phone calls you’ve scheduled your first appointment. You may be feeling nervous, excited, or like you just made a huge mistake. Either way, you have decided to keep the appointment and see what this is all about. One of the questions you may be asking yourself is, “How do I know if my therapist is a good fit for me?” Let’s take a moment to dive a little bit deeper into the relationship you may have with your therapist and how to know if they are a good fit for you.
Now before you call a therapist you may want to consider what identities are important to you when it comes to the person you are meeting with. If you are a Black person or person of color you may want to meet with a therapist who is also a Black person or person of color. You may want a therapist who is a woman or who practices your same religion. You may want someone who identifies with the LGBTQ+ community. At the very least you probably want someone who has demonstrated, either by what they have written on their website or through other content they have shared, that they are an ally and understand the unique challenges your community might face. You also want to consider if you are looking for someone who specializes in a particular area (trauma, eating disorders, grief, etc.). Thinking about this before you start therapy will help you find a therapist who meets your needs and therefore is more likely to be a good fit. This does not mean that every therapist who identifies the way you do will be great or that therapists who do not identify the way you do will be terrible. It just means that you may want to reflect on this before you start looking.
Another thing to understand about therapy and the therapeutic relationship is that it is not a friendship. You are not looking for your therapist to be your best friend. You are looking for your therapist to be able to help you explore your concerns and help you reach whatever goals you want to work on in therapy. This is important to keep in mind because it will help you manage your expectations. Your therapist should be friendly and create a space where you feel welcome, safe, and able to be vulnerable. Creating this kind of relationship will take some time so if you do not feel connected right away, stay open and try to attend at least one more session before making a decision. The exception here is if the therapist says or does something offensive or inappropriate. If this is the case, keep looking.
One of the biggest questions to ask yourself when figuring out if your therapist is a good fit for you is “How do they make me feel?” You can expect to feel challenged at times. You can even expect to be annoyed, frustrated, confused with/by your therapist sometimes. That is expected because this is a relationship and we experience those emotions in relationships. It’s also to be expected because you are talking about things that are going to bring up all types of emotions. The difference here is whether you feel like you can talk about it with your therapist.
Here are a few other questions to reflect on when trying to figure out if your therapist is a good fit:
Do you feel like you can be your full self with them?
Are they helping you explore your issues?
Do you feel judged by your therapist?
Do you know more about your therapist than they know about you?
Again, this is not an exhaustive list of questions for you to ask yourself. It may also take some time to get clear on the relationship you are building with your therapist in order to make a decision about whether or not you want to continue to meet with them. Either way, taking some time on the front end will help you get more clear about what you are looking for in a therapist and make the process of looking for a therapist a little easier.
Healing is not linear
Life can be tough. We are often faced with challenge after challenge and it can feel like a lot. One thing facing all this adversity provides us with is the opportunity to heal from it. When I talk about healing I’m talking about making space for our emotions, processing them, and moving forward. In my work with clients who are trying to heal from past traumas or hardships one of the things I hear most often is, “When am I going to be done with this feeling and/or process?” There is a strong desire to “get over” the tough parts of life and when we can’t do that as quickly as we want to we beat ourselves up or think that something is wrong with us. It adds suffering to an already painful situation.
This desire to move on quickly and heal from whatever caused us pain applies to a variety of challenges but here are the most common ones I find my clients talking about:
Ending of a relationship
Death of an important person in their lives
Workplace trauma
Trauma from childhood
Trauma as an adult in the from of sexual assault or physical abuse
“Failing” at something
Whatever the situation or experience is there is an unrealistic expectation that we move on and we move on fast. So when a few months go by and you feel yourself still trying to navigate uncomfortable feelings try to remember that this is not abnormal. Healing is not a linear process. There will be days where you feel okay, you have more energy, you even forget that there was something wrong. You may have a few days in a row like that! Then you may start to feel sad or angry and you may have a few days in a row like that. You may even have a day that starts off fine and then gets difficult or vice versa. That does not mean that you have gone backwards. It means that you are a human being experiencing the process of healing.
There may also be milestones or other things that bring up difficult emotions such as the holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, songs, pictures, etc. You may be completely surprised by whatever emotions come up around those times and again feel like you’ve not worked hard enough to heal. And again, you are a human being experiencing the full range of emotions that come with healing. Here are some things to consider doing instead of judging yourself for however you are feeling:
Speak kindly to yourself. Imagine you are talking to a friend, loved one, or child when you are talking to yourself. Chances are you would speak more kindly to those folks so apply that same energy to yourself.
Allow whatever feeling you are feeling to be felt and then do something that addresses it. For example, if you are feeling sad, consider what would provide you with comfort in that moment. Is it a warm drink? Warm blanket? Phone call with your best friend? If you are feeling lost, what typically helps you feel grounded? Meditating? Praying? Cleaning your house? Making a to-do list?
Seek out support and help. This could come in the form of a therapist, spiritual advisor, friend, family member, etc. Sometimes we need help when navigating difficult times and emotions. That does not mean that you are “weak” or doing it wrong. It means that you believe you are worthy of feeling better and being supported through the process.
I hope this helps you if you are finding yourself working to heal from a difficult situation or experience. You are not alone and there is help out there available to you!
New to therapy? Read this!
The holiday season and the end of the year often cause us to reflect and ask ourselves who we are and what we want out of life. This may get us thinking about starting (or restarting) therapy. With that in mind I wanted to share some thoughts about what you can expect from a therapy session. You may be feeling nervous, unsure, excited, or like you want to cancel the initial appointment you just made. Those are all valid feelings. Hopefully, this helps you get a sense of whe goes on in therapy so that you stick with it and begin your path to healing and discovery.
Let’s dive in!
Your therapist may be dressed “professionally” or in jeans. They may also have a nice office or they may not. You may be meeting with them virtually. There are many ways you may interact with your therapist and it is unlikely (although it is possible) that any of those ways will involve you lying on a couch like we so often see in the movies and on tv.
If it is your first session with a new therapist you are likely going to be answering some questions that provide the therapist with information about who you are. This will include a more detailed conversation about what made you seek out therapy in the first place, who makes up your family and support system, what symptoms you may be experiencing, where you work or go to school, what you do for fun, etc. It’s meant to allow your therapist to get to know you and for you to start to get a feel for your therapist as well. You probably won’t be going deep into the issues that brought you to therapy in this session.
In subsequent sessions you will be starting to do the “work” of therapy. This means that you will start exploring the concerns that brought you to therapy more deeply. The way in which you do that will depend on the therapist. Some therapists are more directive and active during sessions meaning that they will talk a little more and give you more direct guidance. Other therapists may provide you with more space to talk and more questions to help you come to your own conclusions. Some therapists may do all of these things throughout the session or at different times during your time in therapy. It all depends on who you are meeting with and what you are talking about. Feel free to ask your therapist about how they approach therapy!
You should be prepared before you come to therapy. This means that you have thought about what you would like to talk about which could be based on what has occurred during the time between sessions and/or what you spent time reflecting on (journaling is a great way to reflect). I know that it seems like you can just come to therapy and the therapist will somehow know what is going on in your mind, but that is not the case! We rely on you to share with us what is going on in your internal and external world and to have thought about how you want to use your session so that we can be most helpful to you.
This of course is not an exhaustive list of all the things you can expect in therapy, but it is a place to start reflecting on what to expect. I will be back to share with you more about how to know if your therapist is a good “fit” for you, how to experience conflict with your therapist, how to break up with your therapist, how to use journaling as a tool, and more! Stay tuned!
