How to Find a Therapist, Part 2: Taking Names

The time has come to search for your therapist.
You've identified your needs, specified your criteria, thought a bit about your budget and are ready to get some names. Congratulations.

I'm going to tell you some of the most common ways to get a list going, add a touch of inside scoop, and then you can decide what feels best for you.

Word of mouth

Getting recommendations from people you know and trust is a wonderful place to start.

What does this sound like? Whatever fits with your style of asking.

​“I'm looking for a great therapist. Do you know of anyone”?

“I'm having a really hard time since mom died. I think it's time to talk to someone. I know your wife went through this last year. Can you recommend any specific resources”?

Of course, you have to feel comfortable telling people you're looking for a therapist, which in an ideal world wouldn't be a second thought. But if if you are feeling shy about asking around, you're not alone. It's not you, it's stigma.

While I personally think those asking for help and allowing themselves to be vulnerable are the bravest people out, for the sake of getting what you need, there's always:

 “My friend is looking for a therapist. Have any recommendations”?

There is something special and subtly community-building about word-of-mouth referrals.

I've been on every side of this. My love-of-a-therapist for years was recommended whole-heartedly by a colleague of my mom's when I was 17 years old. I, in turn, recommended her to a few of my closest friends over the years, and they to theirs.

On the therapist end, I notice that when client's are referred from people who really know me, they are more open and trusting right from the beginning.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with being slow to warm up, but my point is that there is something comforting about having even a distant familiarity with a person, even if that means your brother's neighbor's daughter's friend was greatly helped by her or him.

Insurance/EAP Lists

These. Are. Long.

Don't let that deter you. Since you've narrowed down some of the specifics you're looking for, you can whittle this list as well.

You can take this list from 100 to 10 just by plugging in your needs. 

You can usually search by preferences, such as zip code, gender, language capacity and/or specialty. Whoever pops up should have a little “about me” blurb.

Once you've found a few good options, you may be ready to start calling, or you may want to do a little more research online.

Internet Search

We all know it's a vast world online, so searching the web for a therapist can be intimidating if it's your starting point. However, if you've already found some names, it's one way to check them out further.

If you are starting from scratch, here are some good things to know.

Search Engines

Of course, you can do a quick Google search and see what you see. But when I type “San Francisco Therapist,” up pops 19,000,000 results in .52 seconds. The top ones, of course, are those with paid advertisements, followed by links to popular therapy directories.

While you may stumble upon a website you like within that search, it might be more helpful to simply start with a directory.

Online Therapist Directories

Psychology Today, Good Therapy, and Therapy Tribe are some of the most popular online directories, and each will give you some sense of your potential therapist's style. If you're specifically looking for a low-cost option, Open Path Psychotherapy Collective provides just that. 

Again, you can plug in your preferences and numerous options will appear. These sites are typically more fleshed out than the online insurance lists, so, cross-referencing may bring you a fuller picture of who you're looking for.

Here you can see how therapists describe their work in a nutshell, how long they've been practicing, and their general price range. You can see their faces and, more often than not, links to their websites.

If reading each and every detail is what helps you decide, do that. If you have a gut instinct about one or a few (perhaps you like one woman's smile, perhaps another one's sense of humor), great. Go with it.

Yelp

Aah, Yelp, every business owner's frenemy (an outdated, but perfectly descriptive term).

For those seeking services it's, of course, enticing to receive information not presented by therapists, but by those who know them, either as consumers or colleagues.

I would probably not recommend this domain as your starting point, but more as the finishing touch on your search.

I say this largely because, unlike other types of businesses, it is actually against ethical standards for therapists to solicit testimonials from clients, for reasons beyond the scope of this article. This, in and of itself, leads many therapist to not want to add their businesses to Yelp. Basically, it's not a representative pool of therapists.

When you do see therapists on Yelp, they typically have reviews from colleagues, recipients of services that are not therapy per se (workshops, consultation, coaching, etc.), and some clients who have found them and volunteered reviews. (Here's a link to mine, for reference)

This is an excellent way to see what others have to say. Maybe someone's description really resonates with what you are seeking. Perhaps it's the last detail you were needing to hear in order to move forward, which is great!

If there are negative reviews, look for a pattern and/or a substantive critique. If someone has one negative review because they didn't call someone back or there was some kind of misunderstanding, I wouldn't necessarily count that person out, if there are other factors that appeal to you.

Note: When therapists have a lot of reviews from clients, it's typically because someone has found a way around the basic ethical standard. Perhaps it's a group practice that has the administrative capacity to solicit testimonials in another way. This is a smart business move, but it's important for the general public to know that it is just that. Again, tons of useful and true information in the content of the reviews, but not a representative pool of your local therapists, just a small business savy cross-section.


Okay, about sums it up on searching for a therapist. Hopefully using one or more of these methods with get you a short list of possibilities, and next we'll go over what to say and expect when you call.

Yours in wellness, self-care and compassion,

Shana

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​Think I may be the right fit for you? Feel free to email me at [email protected] or call 415-963-3546.