| Absolutely, but, know that finding the right therapist is less like finding a doctor, and more like dating or finding a church. One isn't interchangeable for another; you may have to search around a bit. A good therapist is someone who: - Really listens to you, and doesn't dismiss your feelings and experiences or try to put them in a box. - (Gently) pushes you to dig into things and really uncover real stuff that leads you to progress. Some therapists just offer vague encouragement that feels nice for a bit but doesn't really help long-term. - You trust. At least for me, there were some deep existential/identity developments I had to make. And I had to be aligned enough with my therapist on the big questions that I trusted them to help me along in the right direction. They won't ever have all the answers for you (be wary of those who say they do!); ultimately those come from you. But they're going to be an integral part of the process, so you have to be compatible as a team. It took me three tries to find a therapist that was really right for me. It could take more than that. But it's absolutely changed my life in ways that nothing else could have. One other tip: different therapists have different styles. At least for me and the people I know, "cognitive-behavioral" therapy was pretty useless. It tends to treat symptoms rather than causes. I recommend "parts-work"/IFS, which gets at the root causes and encourages you to identify and heal dissonance between different parts of yourself so that you can be on your own side instead of being in inner conflict. That said- everyone's different, and I'm sure other styles work for some people out there. Best of luck. |
And I admit that the first pass was a lot on how they looked, whether they seemed like somebody I would trust. That was distressingly like dating, and I kinda worried that I was actually applying the same criteria.
I finally found somebody like 20 pages down. It wouldn't have occurred to me to use the keywords that would have led me to that person, but it felt correct. I talked with them and a few other top candidates, and picked the one who seemed right.
It has worked out very well. Incidentally, they're also doing parts/IFS type things.