How did you choose your T?

I have been with my T for two years.

A lot has happened since but I am very grateful I carried on working with her, and she has never given up on me through all the struggles.

Two years ago I picked her out from 'counselling directory' a website in UK where a lot of therapists advertise themselves. I am a female and I wanted a female therapist, I was 18, and I wanted to see someone not too old so it doesn't feel like I'm talking to a mum. And realistically I just picked who looked like I could work with.

I had my first session with her and I was open with the fact that I was just discharged off section 3 after a hospital stay of nearly a year, and I struggle with self harm. She didn't flinch and she said she could work with me. And thats how we started.

I relapsed really bad with anorexia last year and I also lost my father to cancer, without the support from my T I wouldn't have got through it.

Therapy was never going to happen for me without insurance. We don't have that kind of money. So, as in all things that are covered by insurance, I simply went to my insurance list of providers. I knew I needed someone very close by because I work full time and would be going after work, so proximity mattered. That narrowed it down to about six people if I remember right. Only two were male, and I preferred a male therapist. That got it down to two, and they happened (at the time) to be in the same office. I chose the one better credentialled which ended up being a good plan because the other ended up moving fairly quickly. I never tried out anyone else. I managed to find a great therapist on my first try.

The therapist I chose, I ended up working with for about a decade, and he was excellent. I haven't needed therapy now for a bit over 8 years largely due to his skilled support.

I asked my Pdoc if he knew of a therapist that would work well with me and he recommended her to me.

I chose from the UK counselling directory too. He was very close to where I worked at the time, was interested in a few things I was interested in, and male which I also needed.
It was a leap year and if I didn't contact him then, I would've had to wait another 4 years and I didn't think I would be alive that long.

Previously I had chosen therapists that were out of town, to keep some distance. Or been referred to them by a doctor. None of them had ever helped me, in fact they only made me worse and some were just abusive.

I’m glad you have found a good therapist to work with early on, sometimes I wonder If I was too late finding mine. Maybe if I had found him 10 years earlier I wouldn’t be such a mess now.

I wanted to work with an old woman, a feminist and someone who said something interesting about working relationally. She also looked friendly in her photo on Counselling Directory. Turns out that was a red herring as she can be a horror. She catfished me!

My first therapist, my pcp at the time recommended. I never wanted to attend therapy so it took her a while to convince me to it a try. She knew I was in a pretty fragile state emotionally, so she told me there was only one person she would trust referring me to. Finally I afreed to seeing that person for a short period of time. I saw her for 10 years.

After about 8 years I started having fears of her retiring and I knew to be able to stop therapy I needed to deal with my trauman. After consulting with my TI sought out a T who provided EMDR. From all that I read it would inly ve a few sessions and it would be better. I wanted somebody who worked close to where I lived but I hadnt dealt with through work, and an older female who took my insurance. The person I found through psychology today was somebody T had talked to over the years on a professional level but she never really knew her. When I told pdoc who was going to meet with, her response was if it doesnt work out with her I have another person who I think would be a good fit.

I met with the person I found and it was horrible. T agreed I should cancel and never see that person again. So pdoc gave me the name of the person she felt I should see. I eas very nervous because she is 5 years younger than me and her office is almost 45 miles from where I live and work. We are also in a totally different place in life my kids are all now young adults her child is a four. We hace been working together for almost 3 years.. It hasnt been perfect but we work really well together. She has heloed me deal with the sudden loss of T and all the trauna it triggered for me. We are very slowly working in my past trauma but realize just how mych it effects almost every aspect of my life so it us slow going.

I had worked with 10+ bad T’s (at least bad for me) over the course of 20 years and had totally given up on therapy as useless, harmful, BS. I didn’t want to give up on healing though. At the news that a beloved mentor would be retiring in the next year or so I snapped and the pain became unbearable. I had always held out a last ditch hope that I could get back to the state this mentor lives in and they would help me heal.
I had always worked with female T’s and given my history and fear of men it made sense. When I asked Pdoc for a referral she said she honestly could not think of anyone capable of working with me successfully (this was not an inappropriate comment and was a part of a much larger conversation). I knew I needed someone who worked with trauma and that didn’t have ties to the school out here that a majority of the T’s have graduated from.

Then I sat down and wrote about the most wonderful, healing people I have had in my life. I saw a completely different pattern. Even with my fear most of them were men, most were older but took exceptional care of their health, they were in a higher social class than I am, they were very spiritual or religious.

So then I went to an online therapist finder and found a guy that reminded me of the men I had written about. He didn’t specialize in trauma but was open to working with it. I looked at his training, CEUs, certifications and his professional web page... I was terrified. I called some female T that fit all the old patterns but did equine facilitated therapy. She never returned my call. I cried, got sick and paced for three days, my husband though I had the flu or something and kept trying to get me to the Dr. Finally I emailed that male T and then got sick. He replied the next day with a very short professional reply asking for my phone number and promising to call. I sent it and called in sick to work. When he called he sounded cold, distant and like a jerk. I scheduled the appointment but promised myself that when I met him, if I felt at all uncomfortable I didn’t have to go to his office I could leave and come home.

We have been working together for almost a year and a half now and he is pretty awesome with me. We have had a few mishaps here and there but it always works out.

I found both ex-T and current T on Psychology Today. In both cases, I contacted a few different T's, and they were either the first to get back to me or the first with an opening in a reasonable amount of time (some never got back to me at all, which kinda sucks). In my current T, Dr. T's case, he must have been looking at his email when I contacted him, because he wrote back almost immediately to say that he'd be done seeing clients at 6, that he could give me a call then to discuss a possible session. We talked for maybe 15 minutes that evening, and I just had a good feeling about him. Think I saw him the first time maybe a few days later?


With ex-marriage counselor, he was in the same practice as ex-T, and when I asked at the time if she had any suggestions for a marriage counselor, she pointed to his office. (Little did she know what a mess that would turn into...)

Psych today. Older than me, female, straight (so I don't run into them in my community), and did not have a picture where they looked perky or like they were trying to be maternal.

Recommended by the provider of another service. The mental health conversation was almost incidental, but it was a very good thing to come out of that involvement.

I had a breakdown while staying over at one of my friend's. He called an emergency psychiatry service and some lady came over to talk to me. She recommended I go to therapy but didn't have a spot available in her own practice (I didn't like her too much anyways). So she gave me the number of a guy she knew had some open spots (the guy turned out to be her husband, but she didn't tell me at the time, he told me immediately though). She also put down a website where I could go find other therapists if I didn't like the one she recommended.

I called the guy, we scheduled a first session where I brought the same friend who initially called the emergency service with me. I wasn't too impressed by my T during that session, nor during the next few, but he also didn't mess up anything major like all the other therapists I'd seen before him. I decided to stick around for a while, simply because I couldn't be bothered to search for yet another therapist and because there wasn't anything wrong with him, there just wasn't an immediate great chemistry between us. Looking back at that, it might well have been his own insecurities that I felt during that time which made me question whether he was really the right T.

But, I decided to stick with him for long enough that we both got comfortable around each other and after about half a year it was pretty clear to me that I was happy with him as a T and decided to stay for however long it takes/I can stay.

I didn't have a choice over T1 and T2 because of the circumstances and settings where I saw them. Thankfully they were both excellent and very helpful ts, in very different ways. I found T3 via her website and she helped me in some ways, but personality wise we didn't get on very well. I found T4 (current T) via a mainstream therapist-searching site and she is brilliant, lives near me and is just lovely in every way. I picked her partly due to location and partly due to the way she looked in her photo and how she described herself and her approach.

Because she was a *clinical* psychologist. But as I just learned that doesn't mean they're good at their job. Mine was horrible!

His profile picture from a online skype directory.

He seemed nice not "hot".

I've been working with him for almost 3.5 years now.



He also wrote about knowing that starting therapy wasn't easy and he would try to make the client as comfortable as possible.

I found T on psychology today. When I saw her picture, I knew I wanted to work with her. When I read her snippet about her views, I knew she was the one. Everything she said fit.

I didn't really find or chose L, nor did T. T was going on maternity leave, so she asked a colleague of hers for a referral and she gave this guy as a referral. When he read my email, he thought I'd be a better fit for his colleague, so he referred me to L. When I heard L's voice and talked to her on the phone, I knew she was the one. So much so that I have stuck with her even after T got back. T is still there too.

I found my current T on Psychology Today. I had criteria beforehand: took my insurance, had open evening appointments, and preferably male. I interviewed two and seemed to resonate better with the one I’m seeing now. I’m glad that I picked him. He seems like he’s invested in my success, which I need to feel.

I asked a colleague if she could recommend someone because she knew the community providers better than I did. She recommended someone she had seen herself, which gave me a bit of pause at first (I didn't want to 'steal' her therapist), but she assured me it was okay and I really needed help so I went ahead with the first appointment.

It worked out well although the first six to eight months was really rocky. It would have been rocky with any therapist because I wasn't in the place to trust anyone. Anyway, because my colleague had seen this T, I knew she took my insurance so that checked a big box. And that was five or six years ago. Now I only see her once a month for ongoing support.

I had a breakdown while working one day (I was working in Customer Service for a cable company, it was the worst job ever) and that week saw pdoc the first time (found him from my insurance.) He diagnosed clinical depression & prescribed meds and at every med check he'd recommend concurrent talk therapy but I dragged my feet on that for a year or so. Finally looked up some names on his list he gave me, on psychology today and stumbled upon ex-t's profile. I was drawn to her because her profile talked about dream work and I was intrigued. I called her and one on pdocs list, she called me back, we just totally clicked from that first phone call, and I saw her for going on 8 years (until 7 months ago). If I were independently wealthy, I would still be seeing her for maintenance, she doesn't take insurance and paying out of pocket for most of the 8 years got rather expensive.

With former T, a couple of friends got together and tried to convince me to go to therapy, which wasn't too hard because I was open to it. One of the friends was a social worker. She offered to find me the right therapist. She did. She found former T for me and I saw her for 10 years before she got MS. With the T I have now, she was in the same office as Pdoc and while he couldn't recommend anyone he said most people seem to get along with her so I tried her out. She's a bit quirky but I like her. Pastor T volunteered to start seeing me because I had put in prayer requests involving suicidal thoughts. My first Pdoc was referred to me by my Primary Care Provider. And then when he retired, I started seeing his replacement. He's been a great Pdoc.