Finding a Counsellor

Finding a counsellor can be an arduous task. I know this because I personally went on this journey to find a new therapist recently. It was so challenging at times that I felt like giving up. Having a counsellor of my own is a really important part of my own self-care as a therapist. I told myself it would be worth it in the end, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to throw in the towel along the way! 

Some of the stumbling blocks I ran into on my search included; therapists who were no longer in practice, counsellors who weren’t accepting new clients, therapists whose schedules conflicted with my own, and therapists who I had mutual friends with! These were all surface level hurdles I had to jump over before I could get to the task of actually trying to find out whether or not we would be a good fit to work with one another. 

Finding the right therapist is super important. Studies actually show that your relationship with your therapist is the single most important factor in whether or not you will reach the goals you set out to achieve in therapy. It is important that you can find someone you feel safe with, understood by, and someone you enjoy talking to. Most folks hope to find a therapist who is warm, empathic, non-judgmental, and respectful. 

I started my own search on google, as we start many of our searches these days. But one thing to note is that counsellors who are registered as Clinical Counsellors with the BCACC are expected ethically NOT to ask their clients for testimonials. So while we often look for client testimonials in deciding whether or not we will reach out to a service we have found on google, it is important to note that you aren’t likely to find that many client testimonials in the therapy world. You may find a few from clients who have been willing to comment on their experience, but many folks also keep their therapeutic relationship quite private, and prefer not to leave a review even if they have a ton of respect for their clinician. 

After locating some of the therapists in my area, I went to their profiles on the various clinic websites they were a part of, and in some cases this led me to the search engine Psychology Today. Many counsellors in BC are members of Psychology Today, and on this website you can get a feel for who they are as a therapist, the types of issues they generally work with, populations they serve, and often some of their fundamental ideas about healing. Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy to tell from Psychology Today if the clinician is accepting new clients or not, and whether or not they have a waitlist for new clients, and how long you might expect to wait if this is the case. 

I remember feeling quite a bit of disappointment early on in my search after finding a clinician’s profile whom I thought could be a good fit, to find out with a phone call or email, that they weren’t accepting new clients. It can be incredibly defeating to receive that message over and over. 

While picking up the phone can be a bit daunting, this was the way I ended up finding the therapist I am seeing now. I decided to call a few of the counselling clinics in my area and speak to their reception team. In my experience, the reception teams at counselling offices are incredibly warm, empathic, and caring. Their job is to help you find the right fit, and they know who on the team is accepting new clients at the moment, and exactly how long the waitlist might be for a more experienced clinician. You can tell them a bit about what is going on for you, and they might be able to suggest someone who they think could be a good fit. You are cutting back on a lot of the back and forth emailing, and getting a little closer to the source by making a call. This is where my search started to feel more hopeful!

Once you do find a handful of clinicians who you think could be a good fit for you, my recommendation is to book an introductory conversation with each of them. I know some people fear this means sharing everything personal about your life over and over, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Stay tuned for a blog post soon on some helpful intentions for these introductory conversations. Most experienced therapists will offer a 15 or 20 minute complimentary conversation so that you can get a feel for how it is to speak to them, some of why they went into counselling, and some of what you might expect from your work together. Generally speaking, these conversations go by really quickly! But, you can get a good gut-feeling of whether or not it is someone you would like to continue speaking to.

Something I wondered about before becoming a therapist was whether or not I could book multiple introductory conversations with different people at the same counselling office. Would they know I booked with one of their colleagues?! Do they share this kind of information? I’m here to tell you that confidentiality is paramount and no clinicians should be sharing names of clients with other clinicians without that client’s expressed written consent. It is completely natural to book several calls at the same counselling office, to see if there is someone who you feel most comfortable with.

If upon reading this you are thinking I might be someone you might like to get to know better as a clinician, I would welcome you to book a complimentary 20 minute conversation with me. You can do so at the link here. 

Ideas for a future blog post, questions or concerns to express? Please don’t hesitate to reach out at hello@lararabb.com. 

And in the meantime, take good care.