2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
I think you can figure out the right therapist right away. By the look, manner of speaking, appearance, and most importantly, by their feelings next to this person. I think it should be good, as if you have finally returned home (not literally, of course, but in the sense of a safe place), there should be a feeling that you can not be afraid and not pretend to be anyone, that your words are taken seriously and are not trying discount that your story is interesting to the person sitting opposite.
It is important to feel that the therapist also behaves naturally, not as an expert or guru who "knows better", not as a teacher who will now give an assessment, and not as a judge who is about to issue a verdict, but as an ordinary person who knows not everything, but empathizes and is ready to be there, no matter how bad it is.
If they give advice like: "Well, I would be in your place …" / "Here's how to proceed …" Throughout the meeting, there is a feeling that you are not being heard, and the therapist's questions and interpretations rather do not help, but interfere with understanding yourself, you have every right to get up and leave. hurt even more.
It also happens in another way - you and the therapist may simply not be suitable for each other, because you are not equally comfortable with all people, right? For example, you have a different temperament, and this is reflected in everything: from emotional intensity to the rate of speech - respectively, both are uncomfortable. Or you are unambiguously determined to solve your difficulties in a short time on a superficial level (say, to get rid of a symptom), and the therapist works in a dynamic or existential-humanistic approach and does not engage in short-term therapy at all. Or just a specialist is purely humanly unsympathetic to you, even though he seems to be doing everything right. In such cases, it is important to listen to yourself and decide whether to stay. Working with a therapist who causes conflicting emotions is a big challenge, it can be useful in certain cases, but if the first place in therapy for you is a feeling of comfort and mutual understanding, then perhaps it is better not to get involved in this adventure) Everything that I try say, no matter how trite it may sound: when choosing a specialist, trust yourself. Listen to your inner response and follow it. If you remain in a therapy that is “against your soul”, without communicating your feelings, it does not benefit either you or the therapist. On the other hand, it seems to me that daring to tell a specialist in the face of what you do not like, is inconvenient, does not fit is already a very big step forward. Perhaps you will acquire just this skill in contact with an "inappropriate" therapist:) And it may turn out that after that the most interesting thing in your work with him will only begin)
