The essential characteristics of the ideal therapist which lead you to profound and long lasting shifts. 

First impressions always count.

My first session with a counsellor was when I was thirty, and I had no idea what to expect. I remember sitting on one side of a large dark timber desk with the counsellor on the other. It felt formal and cold; her long silences made me uncomfortable, and her judgment toward me oozed from her being. I left feeling confused and shamed. Not long after, I made a pact that I would never make someone feel how I did. Nothing is more accurate than ‘you never get a second chance at a first impression.’ They always count, whether on the phone or face-to-face. 

Evaluating the Therapeutic Relationship.

Finding a therapist who fits well with you can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. The ideal therapist has crucial elements integral to leading you to profound and long-lasting shifts. One who takes you on a journey of self-discovery, challenges you, is direct but not judgemental, open-minded, and willing to let you explore possibilities for your life that may be very different from their own.   

Choose the most experienced therapist you can afford.

It’s critical that you work with a therapist who has experience working with your specific problem. Whether you are dealing with addictions, trauma, depression, anxiety, LGBTQA+, relationship challenges, or domestic violence, your therapist must know the issue you are dealing with. Don’t be afraid to ask about their credentials and life experience. This helps to form a collaborative partnership. 

Your therapist can’t save you.

A therapist has the unique role of helping you face your reality. It is not to rescue you. The goal is to support you in finding your voice and empower you to change your life. Through this narrative process, courage and strength emerge from a grounded place, and you re-story your life and therefore save yourself.  

Therapists don’t take sides when working with couples.

It is not professional for a therapist to judge, shame, blame, or gang up on either partner in a session. Typically, by working with many individuals, a therapist gains insight into people’s motivations for doing what they do, their sacrifices, anxieties, dreams, ambitions, deep hurts, and disappointments. Accordingly, a couple can benefit from having individual sessions with the same therapist they see as a couple. Enormous benefits come from this arrangement as the therapist gains awareness of the couple’s dynamics. 

An experienced therapist working with couples will know how to mediate and direct effortlessly, provoke, liberate, and enchant a couple across their challenges. Through this process, the decision to stay together, repair and do things differently, or separate and move on will be made with clarity, honour, and confidence.  

Telling your story over and over keeps it the same.

If you have previously experienced therapy and repeated your story many times and still don’t feel the shift you were hoping for, then that is problematic. Effective treatment goes beyond just talking and sharing. A therapist will ask specific questions about your journey and any ongoing health concerns that will join the puzzle pieces. Ultimately you want to be guided to understand how the hangovers from the past have prevented you from fully experiencing this moment in time and then resolve them.