Dylan Lowartz
Just as you have your own personality and preferences, so does each therapist. If you’re new to therapy or have had a less-than-positive experience with a previous therapist (outside of Shift, of course!), I hope this blog will help you gain confidence in finding the right help for you.
Finding a therapist can be intimidating, and a negative experience with one therapist can make you second guess whether therapy will work for you. Your connection with your therapist will determine how and what you talk about, how much you trust their insight, and whether or not you get the full value of your experience.
This is why it is so important to utilize the 15-minute free consultations (meet and greets) to find a therapist you can trust and who can help you with your challenges and concerns.
To get the most out of your consultation time, we recommend the following:
If you feel that this therapist may not be the best fit, ask if they have a recommendation for you. This helping profession has a massive network and we want to find the right therapist for you. We make it our mission to help clients find the right fit and we stand by our Therapist Fit Guarantee Policy. If you still haven’t found the right fit for you, let our team know.
If you’ve already tried therapy but didn’t click with the therapist, I encourage you to reflect on what didn’t work for you in that experience.
Having been both an “unsuitable” and a “perfect fit” for potential clients, I can assure you that just because one therapist couldn’t establish a therapeutic bond with you doesn’t mean no therapist can.
I am a white male who, as an ally, can recognize that I am afforded many privileges in Western society that various other groups are not. After two sessions with a client who identified as a person of colour, I asked them how our therapy sessions were going for them. They disclosed that they felt they could not engage with me in the same way as they had with their previous therapist, a non-white female.
They said they could see that I was trying my best to connect, but at the end of the day, they didn’t feel that they could be as open with a therapist who identifies as a white male because of the differences between our cultural backgrounds and lived experiences. The remainder of this second and final session involved looking for their ideal therapist, who could help them with their initial therapeutic goals and who was also a better fit for their needs in a therapeutic relationship.
Another client informed me in a consultation that her previous therapist only gave her worksheets and homework, but what she needed was a therapist who would include more validating and talk therapy about the life events that have led them to the struggles they were facing. As my therapeutic approach is very client-centred, our therapeutic relationship allowed my client to achieve many of the goals they set during therapy.
That’s why meet and greets are so important — they’re an opportunity to get an idea of what it will be like to work with that therapist and to identify any potential barriers.
Here are a few takeaways to remember when looking for a therapist:
Shopping around for a therapist sounds like an odd phrase, but therapists are not one-size-fits-all, and you deserve to find that perfect match to help you on your wellness journey.
If you’d like to dig deeper into the building blocks of therapy, click here to grab our guide on Therapy Basics. Whenever you’re ready, you can get matched with one or more therapists have a free consultation with each.
No spam. Just tips and tricks to have a better week every other Monday.
No spam. Just tips and tricks to have a better week every Monday.