How To Choose The Right Therapist
Choosing a therapist can be difficult. With hundreds of different therapeutic practices, working styles, and differences in plain old personality, finding the right fit can be a process that takes time – and as a therapist serving a diverse range of clients in Hermosa Beach, I get it. Finding the right therapist is a deeply personal process, and you deserve to take the time to get it right. To help provide a little guidance on your search, here are my tips for choosing the right therapist, based on my own experience as both a client and a therapist.
How to Choose a Therapist
The first thing to consider when searching for a therapist is the question of specialty. In particular, if you’re seeking therapy to work through a particular issue like anxiety or relationship troubles, it’s important to find a therapist who has experience with that topic. In fact, there are entire specialties of therapy dedicated purely to overcoming specific forms of trauma – so look for a therapist whose expertise aligns with your own therapeutic goals.
In addition to specialty, style is a major factor in finding the right therapist. There’s a wide range of therapeutic techniques, and even within each tradition, every therapist has their own unique style and approach – and it’s important to find a therapist whose style matches what you are most comfortable with. For example, some clients want to engage in longer term depth work, while others are looking for a shorter-term therapy experience to address the particular crisis or struggle they are going through at that moment. When searching for a therapist, look for one whose approach matches the therapeutic experience you are seeking.
Finally, you should like your therapist as a person. We all have people we like and dislike, often for no specific reason – there are just some people we feel more comfortable with than others. A therapist is someone you need to feel absolutely at ease with because for therapy to work, you must be able to be honest and open with them. So when choosing a therapist, don’t forget to take your own gut feeling and intuition into account. They are often the most important things to listen to!
Contact Your Hermosa Beach Therapist
Ultimately, finding the right therapist is a process that takes time and dedication. However, if you’re interested in starting the process, I’d be happy to help you do it. Feel free to reach out to me on my contact page to learn more about my own approach to therapy and see if we might be a good fit for each other. I’m happy to answer any questions you have about therapy, talk with you about any concerns you might have, and schedule an initial appointment if you are interested in getting started. No matter who you end up seeing, the most important thing is that they are the right match for you!