Choosing a therapist is an important decision. A little research, a few conversations, and paying attention to your own reactions can make the process much easier.

There is a slightly unfortunate irony about looking for a therapist: we're often expected to make this fairly important decision at exactly the time when we have the least energy for making decisions. Maybe you're overwhelmed, a relationship is in trouble, you're burned out, something traumatic has happened, or you've finally decided to deal with something that has been following you around for years. And now you're supposed to sort through dozens of therapist profiles and somehow figure out who might be able to help.

My first suggestion is simple: give yourself permission to take a little time with the decision. Read a little, ask questions, talk with a few people, and pay attention to your own reactions along the way. Finding a therapist isn't necessarily about finding the person with the longest résumé, the newest technique or the most impressive website. You're looking for someone who seems to understand what you're bringing, has appropriate training and experience, and, very importantly, is someone you think you might actually be able to talk to.

Think About How You'd Like to Meet

One of the first decisions these days is whether you want therapy in person, by video, by telephone, or some combination. My own practice is now 100% virtual, and I should admit that I was initially skeptical about it. Before making the transition, I wondered how much would be lost by not sitting together in the same room. I've been surprised by how well it works, and many of my clients have come to prefer it.

Video has obvious advantages. We can see one another, pick up facial expressions and some body language, and easily share information on screen. One advantage I particularly appreciate is being able to bring up a diagram, questionnaire, psychological model, article or piece of psychoeducation and look at it together immediately. Years ago, that often meant remembering to find something, photocopy it and bring it to the next session. Now we can explore it together in real time.

The bigger surprise for me, though, has actually been the telephone. Some clients do remarkably deep work on the phone. It never fails to interest me how much easier it can sometimes be for a person to go inward when they aren't looking at the therapist or wondering how they themselves look on a screen. There isn't a therapist's face to monitor, a room behind them to look at, or that little picture of yourself in the corner of the screen. You can sit somewhere comfortable, close your eyes and simply follow what is happening inside.

It makes me think of something psychotherapy figured out a very long time ago. Freud famously had his patients lie on a couch while he sat outside their direct line of sight. Whatever we may think today about all of Freud's theories, there was an interesting idea in that arrangement: not having to continually look at the therapist may make it easier to free-associate, turn inward and follow your own thoughts. In a session that is, after all, supposed to be about you and your experience, the telephone can sometimes create a modern version of that.

That doesn't mean telephone therapy is better than video. For some kinds of work, it is important for me to see someone's expressions and body language, and the client may want that visual connection as well. Sometimes a combination of video and telephone works particularly well, while some clients prefer telephone sessions almost entirely. I wouldn't have predicted that earlier in my career, but after working virtually for several years I've become much less interested in declaring that there is one “right” way to have a therapy session. The better question is: What helps you feel comfortable enough to talk honestly and go where you need to go?

Do a Little Homework

Once you've thought about how you'd like to meet, spend some time looking at several therapists rather than immediately settling on the first reasonable person you find. Read their websites and biographies. What do they actually talk about? What kinds of clients do they work with? How do they describe therapy? What training and experience do they have? Does it sound as though a real person wrote the biography, and can you imagine yourself sitting down and talking with that person?

It also helps to have at least a rough idea of what you're looking for. If you're seeking trauma treatment and specifically interested in EMDR, find out whether the therapist is actually trained in it and how they use it. If you're looking for couples counselling because you've heard good things about the Gottman Method, look for somebody with genuine experience using Gottman-informed approaches. Sometimes the therapeutic approach matters considerably. Other times you're less concerned about a particular technique and more interested in finding an experienced person who can understand a complicated situation and help you make sense of it.

You certainly don't need to become an expert in psychotherapy before starting psychotherapy, but do a little reading. Learn enough about the possibilities to ask useful questions. This is an important decision and it's worth investing some time in it.

Compare Several Therapists at the Same Time

This is one piece of advice I particularly recommend. Rather than contacting Therapist A, waiting a week, meeting them, deciding you're uncertain and only then beginning the whole process again with Therapist B, identify perhaps three or four promising people and contact them around the same time. It gives you something enormously useful: comparison while your impressions are still fresh.

Email can be a good starting point, but when possible I think a brief telephone conversation can tell you considerably more. Ask about their experience with the issue you're dealing with, how they tend to work, what the first few sessions might look like, how active they are during sessions, their availability and fees, and anything else that's important to you. You aren't interviewing someone for the Supreme Court and you don't need twenty questions. You're simply trying to get a feel for how this person thinks, communicates and relates to you.

Psychology Today also recommends considering things such as a therapist's specialties, therapeutic approach, practical availability and whether you prefer online or in-person treatment. Another important concept in psychotherapy research is the therapeutic alliance—essentially the trust, connection and sense of collaboration that develops between therapist and client. A good working relationship isn't just a pleasant extra; it has consistently been associated with better therapy outcomes.

Pay Attention to Your Gut

Credentials matter. Training matters. Experience matters. Your reaction to the person matters too. When you read someone's biography, what happens inside you? When you hear their voice, do you become a little more comfortable or a little more guarded? Do they seem genuinely interested in what you're saying? Do you feel talked with, or talked at?

I encourage people to pay attention to those reactions. Psychology Today similarly suggests considering after an initial meeting whether you felt comfortable talking, whether the therapist seemed trustworthy and respectful, whether they were attentive, and whether their experience seemed relevant to what you're dealing with.

Listening to your gut doesn't mean therapy should always feel comfortable. Good therapy sometimes involves conversations we'd much rather avoid, and occasionally the therapist's job is to gently challenge something rather than simply agree with us. But there is a difference between “this is difficult material for me to talk about” and “something about this relationship doesn't feel right.” Give yourself permission to notice that distinction.

There Isn't One Perfect Kind of Therapist

People sometimes wonder whether they should choose someone older or younger, male or female, similar to themselves or quite different. There isn't a universal answer. You may want somebody relatively young and fresh, or somebody who has been doing therapy for twenty or thirty years and has accumulated considerable clinical and life experience. Someone closer to your age may understand the stage of life you're navigating, while someone from a different generation may offer a perspective you haven't considered.

Gender can matter too, and again there is no correct answer. A woman may feel safer talking with another woman or discover that, for a particular issue, talking with a man feels surprisingly easier. The reverse can be equally true. Perhaps you've always had female therapists and feel that working with a man this time might be useful, or vice versa. Cultural background, life experience, communication style and personality can matter as well. These aren't trivial considerations. You're trying to create circumstances in which you can actually talk honestly.

Some therapists also concentrate quite narrowly on a particular population or problem—perhaps women, trauma survivors, couples, military members or people with eating disorders. Others have a broader practice. My own practice has always included a fairly wide cross-section of people and concerns, including relationships, ADHD, trauma, stress and burnout, chronic illness and pain, major life transitions, veterans and military families, and people simply trying to understand longstanding patterns in their lives. Neither a broad nor a highly specialized practice is inherently better. The question is what makes sense for you.

What Kind of Journey Are You Considering?

Not everyone comes to therapy for the same reason. Sometimes therapy is relatively short-term: Something has happened. I need help understanding it, making a decision, developing some strategies and getting myself moving again. At other times somebody arrives saying something closer to: I keep ending up in the same relationships. I've been anxious for as long as I can remember. I don't understand why I react this way. Something keeps limiting my life and I want to get underneath it.

Those can be very different pieces of work. Sometimes a practical, focused approach is exactly what's needed. At other times we're exploring patterns that developed over many years, perhaps involving family, attachment, trauma, relationships, identity or beliefs about ourselves. You don't necessarily need to know exactly what you need before you begin—that's partly what therapy is for—but having some sense of what you're hoping will be different can help you choose somebody appropriate.

My own background before psychotherapy included science and the military, and I suspect that part of me has never entirely disappeared. I'm interested in how things work. I enjoy understanding patterns and making therapy practical, whether we're looking at stress and burnout, relationships, ADHD, trauma or something that has been nagging at someone for years. I like psychoeducation and useful models, but I also think therapy eventually has to move beyond theories and help us understand the particular human being sitting in front of us—or, these days in my practice, appearing on the screen or talking with me on the phone.

You Aren't Signing a Lifetime Contract

Another thing worth remembering is that you don't have to decide before your first appointment that this will be your therapist indefinitely. If you're reasonably comfortable with your initial contact, consider committing to three or four sessions and then reevaluate.

Ask yourself: Am I beginning to trust this person? Do they seem to understand me? Are we getting somewhere? Do I understand what we're working on? Am I learning anything about myself? Is something useful beginning to happen here?

Rapport doesn't always happen instantly. Sometimes it takes a few meetings before people settle in, and occasionally talking openly about something that isn't working between therapist and client can itself become valuable therapeutic work. But if you've given it a reasonable try and the fit simply isn't there, you are allowed to say so and choose somebody else. A good therapist should understand that.

Try to Make the Search a Little Less Stressful

You don't have to find the perfect therapist. I'm not sure such a person exists. You're looking for a competent person with appropriate training and experience who seems to understand what you're dealing with and with whom you can imagine developing some trust.

So, if you can, make the search a little more interesting and a little less daunting. Pour yourself a coffee or tea, open a few tabs, read some profiles, send several emails and make a couple of calls. Approach it with some curiosity rather than feeling that every person you contact has to become the one. Compare people, ask questions and notice your reactions.

And remember the irony from the beginning: you may be doing all of this at one of the hardest points in your life. Unfortunately, that's often how it goes. So do yourself a favour and give this decision the time it deserves without demanding that you make it perfectly.

Do a little research. Talk with a few people. Ask your questions. And pay attention to what your gut tells you.

Sometimes that's a pretty good place to begin.

— Rory Batchilder, M.Ed., RP, CCC
Registered Psychotherapist & Canadian Certified Counsellor