How to choose a good therapist and not be stranded

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Decide on the type of specialist, filter out the incompetent and understand if they are trying to cheat you for money.

Almost 6 million Russians sought professional psychological help in 2014. The figure sounds impressive, but it is only 4% of the population. The data were collected by the FOM, and so far they remain the most recent.

78% of the respondents then indicated that they did not turn to anyone for advice in personal matters at all. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of those who used the help of a psychotherapist were satisfied with the result (three out of four people). Therefore, there is reason to believe that the picture may have changed significantly over the past few years.

In addition, online psychotherapy services began to appear. Blogs, television, and popular science books are increasingly talking about the importance of maintaining mental health and not keeping problems to yourself. Let's figure out what tasks psychotherapy solves, how much it costs and how to recognize a bad specialist.

Set your goals

It is worth going to a specialist if for a long time you experience emotions that give you discomfort. For example, get angry with someone and can't stop thinking about it. You are jealous, jealous, bored, upset … And it occupies you too much. Distracts from other activities that would bring joy, rather than sow longing or anger.

You spend hours looking at the pages of your ex or flipping through the Instagram feed. Fingering with alcohol at Friday parties. Psychotherapy in this case will mean that you are already tired of wasting time on this. And you are ready to go ahead.

When you are at the reception, you will surely be greeted by silence. It is important for a psychologist or psychotherapist to know where you will start yourself, with what problem you came up with. To effectively spend the paid time, identify in advance for yourself what exactly bothers you. You can do this point by point in order of priority.

Avoid those who make promises

Psychologist, psychotherapist and psychiatrist are the three types of professionals we turn to for help. Their services are paid for in different ways, and their skills are backed by different levels of education. But they have one thing in common: none of them will give you a recipe for happiness. And he will not say that it is normal to do this, and so it is not. Their task is to study your emotions and experiences, try to find the causes of negative experiences and suggest a trajectory for change.

“Programming for success”, “Getting married in 10 days”, “Let's make you happy in a month” - these phrases should be red flags for you. It is better to pass by such consultations.

If you suffer from unrequited love or are unhappy with a sluggish career, a specialist will teach you how to stop doing it. And start feeling normal, and maybe even happy. Without a partner, without a dream job, but on my own.

Select the type of specialist

Consultant psychologist

Graduate of the Faculty of Psychology. He has no medical education. And he has no right to diagnose or prescribe medications. He works with mentally healthy people who are in difficult emotional situations, experiencing crises and dissatisfaction with themselves.

The psychologist will study your character and behavior and help you find a way out of specific conflicts in your friendship, family or team. Such specialists, in addition to private practice, can work as consultants in schools and universities, banks, clinics, in the army and, for example, in industries.

Psychotherapist

Physician with postgraduate training or specialization in psychiatry. In comparison with him, the psychologist-consultant looks more superficially and solves only a specific problem. He works with an emotion or behavior that the client is not comfortable with. People rather come to a psychotherapist with some suffering, for which they are looking for the true reason during therapy. This requires deeper and longer work.

If the main tool of the counselor psychologist is skills and techniques, the therapist's main tool is himself.

This is a person who is ready to listen and not judge. He applies his knowledge of psychology to find the true basis for a patient's anxiety.

Psychiatrist

A physician who deals with the treatment of mental disorders in cases where there are organic changes. And where a simple conversation will not help business.

For example, depression is most often successfully treated by working with a therapist. But sometimes clinical depression is found, in which the reward system and the production of dopamine go astray. Then a person is basically incapable of experiencing joy. It is the psychiatrist who diagnoses this and selects the drugs. So it is with other mental disorders, in which changes take place at the organic level and treatment requires medication.

Look for someone who is regularly supervised

Psychotherapists themselves go to psychotherapists. As we noted above, their working tool is their own consciousness and personality. But periodically the settings get lost, and then calibration is needed.

There comes a time when a psychotherapist or psychologist goes to his supervisor. This process is called supervision.

They do this for two purposes: to get additional opinion on cases from their practice and to get advice on personal problems. Supervision is important because it allows the specialist to "zero out" and not unknowingly hang their problems on clients.

The frequency of supervision is individual. Different schools of psychotherapy recommend doing them from once a month to once a year. In Russia, this practice is not enshrined in norms. Therefore, it is impossible to oblige a psychotherapist to undergo supervision.

Pay attention to the specialist's membership in various organizations. Some of them require their representatives to be supervised. The easiest way is to openly ask the specialist you have chosen whether he is undergoing this procedure. By reaction, you can understand his attitude towards his work. Avoid those who say they don't need supervision.

Don't get fooled by advertising - explore options

Word of mouth remains the most reliable reference point. Pay attention to the specialists whom your friends and acquaintances recommend to you.

In addition, having chosen the type of specialist, determine what level of education you would like to see from him. Explore which psychological faculties are the most respected in your area.

Browse through several pages of the search engine. Look for those who work in a place convenient to you. Write down the prices of their services and the length of the sessions. This will allow you to define for yourself the scope of costs. In order not to worry already at the reception that you are overpaying.

Determine the frequency of your appointments

No matter how competent the specialist is, he is interested in you coming to him on an ongoing basis. And they did it as often as possible. However, the regularity of the sessions does protect the client and makes the therapy more effective.

The ideal start is one or two sessions per week.

It all depends on the depth of the problem you came up with. And the intensity of the suffering it brings to you. After the first month, the frequency of visits may become less frequent.

It is impossible to predict in advance how many techniques will be enough. However, by listening to your feelings, already in the course of therapy you will be able to determine the optimal frequency and number of sessions for yourself.

Remember, you always have the right to stop therapy. If you want to pay for the course of sessions right away, make sure at a trial appointment that the specialist is right for you. And you are on the same wavelength with him.

In the United States, where psychotherapy is the norm for psychological hygiene, the debate about the abuse of trust by doctors is gaining momentum. Psychotherapists reassure clients that if they quit, they will become unhappy. The New York Times draws attention to this.

According to a 2010 study, which the newspaper cites, 42% of people undergoing psychotherapy, 3 to 10 sessions are enough. Just 1 in 9 people need more than 20 sessions for a course.

For these 11%, therapy becomes a dead end. Research shows that often the longer the therapy, the less likely it is to be effective. But psychotherapists refuse to admit defeat.

The New York Times

Psychotherapy should not be overused. It doesn't have to last forever. It should be perceived as an effective tool to put things in order in your own head and move on. Already a calmer and happier person.

Set aside a budget

Assess your financial capabilities. Debt is unlikely to make you feel comfortable. The financial factor will indirectly shape the frequency of visits for you.

If you feel that your anxieties are outside the scope of a particular problem and more like suffering that you would like to part with, a series of sessions will be required. List your expenses for therapy for a month in advance. And cut others down to put the therapist on your regular budget and avoid any surprises at the end of the month.

Try a free consultation

Free counseling is a good way to determine if you need psychotherapy. If you are a student of a large university, there is probably a psychological service in which professors and graduate students of the Faculty of Psychology work. Pay attention to this.

In addition, there are municipal psychological services in many cities. As a rule, the minus of free consultations is not quality. And the fact that you need to make an appointment in advance. In some cases, even a month. But it's a great way to decide if you want to continue and how much consultation you need.

It may turn out that you will find answers to all your questions at the first session.

Online admission can be a compromise. In the United States, such services have already gained popularity. There are only two of them in Russia - "" and. Both projects started at the end of 2017. The price is comparable to offline tricks.

Watch out for the red flags of the bad specialist

The term "red flags" refers to illustrative situations that require your attention. Something worth thinking about. If you notice something suspicious in communication, put a red flag on your mind. If there are many of them, you will understand that the matter is unclean.

A significant reason to refuse a specialist is personal antipathy. She is inappropriate in choosing any other doctor, from whom you only need his skills and responsibility. But for successful psychotherapy, this is important, notes M. D. Fredrik Neumann.

Fredrik Neumann Director of the Center for the Treatment of Anxiety and Phobias (USA), MD

The patient does not need to love the surgeon performing the operation. But this is important in the case of a psychotherapist or psychiatrist. A therapy with a patient who dislikes you is not possible. Whatever the reason.

The red flag should be checked if, after a short communication, the therapist persuades you to enter into a long-term contract. Put the second one if he assures you that if you quit therapy, you will lose all the achieved results. And you will fall into the abyss of despair and misfortune. For this, you can put the third one right away.

As the supervisor of the Moscow Gestalt Institute Daria Ryazanova points out in an interview, you should not be alarmed if the therapist asks to pay only for the last appointment in advance.

Daria Ryazanova supervisor of the Moscow Gestalt Institute

The fact is that at some stage the client has resistance. This is due to the fact that the patient and the psychotherapist jointly got to some pain points. And when it hurts, you want to give it up immediately. The money paid is usually a guarantee that this will not happen. And the client will break through the unpleasant stage.

It is also normal practice that you cannot get a refund for an appointment if you canceled it in less than a day. This insures both the therapist and you.

“To understand whether a specialist is right for you,” Ryazanova says, “and to distinguish natural resistance from everything else, I would advise you to rely on the impression from the first two meetings. It should be positive enough. And if for the third or fourth time the euphoria was replaced by rejection, then through this it is necessary to break through. And if from the first and from the second time you had serious doubts about a specialist, then it is better to change him right away."