Finding a therapist

When you see a therapist, you should know first that he or she has the training and advanced qualification for doing the job of therapy and counseling. You can know these by the degree after a person's name, the specialties in which that person has had training or experience, the job positions the person has held and for how long and possibly what the person has written and published.

You can learn the basics about potential therapist qualifications by seeing if they are members of a profession and belong to a professional college. For example, psychologists and psychiatrists have professional colleges which regulate their respective professions. The terms counsellor and counseling are generic and are used by many different people to describe what they do regardless of formal training or whether they are or not regulated by a professional college. You can ask what a person’s professional title, degree, training and what university they attended are as well as their extra-university training and job experience.

You can check these further if you wish by telephoning the respective professional colleges (eg; BC College of Psychologists or go to the college website).

If I were looking for a therapist, I would search first for a person from a rigorous professional university training program of at several years beyond a basic undergraduate four year university degree – probably a psychiatrist, psychologist or a psychiatric social worker. Then I would check the therapist specialties on their professional college websites. I would probably phone several therapists I might be considering and ask about their experience and approach, paying special attention to how they sounded to me - that is whether they sounded smart, warm and knowledgeable.

It is said that one of the best ways of getting to the right therapist is by word of mouth regarding who provides really good service (i.e. whose service has been very satisfactory to those friends whose judgment you trust.) I would advocate this approach as well as the above – mentioned checking with professional colleges for therapist training and background.

Finally I would make a choice and have a session with the therapist to see about the match. The match is the sum total of how you feel in the therapists presence. Is he or she a person you can relate to? Does he or she feel like a warm and intelligent person interested in you? And does the person seem emotionally trustworthy? After all, you will be sharing things with this person that are very personal and close to your heart. If there is something wrong with the connection with the therapist, do not hesitate to move on to another. Don’t necessarily focus on a particular technical skill unless that is the only thing you are there for.

Pay attention to your interaction. There has to be a good match to do deep personal work.