This episode in the continuing series on How To Heal explores the sometimes complicat4ed process of hiring a competent therapist to aid in addressing mental health issues.

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Hello, beautiful humans,

and welcome to the Midlife Revolution.

I'm Megan Conner, your host,

and today we're going to

talk about how to hire a therapist.

Whenever you are selecting

somebody to care for your mental health,

it absolutely should be

like a job interview.

It's so important that you

connect with your therapist,

but it's also really

important that in the first

place that you get

connected with somebody who

is qualified and competent

and can really help you

with your specific needs.

Now,

I've had a free how to hire a

therapist guide on my

website that you can

download for a really long time,

but it doesn't really cover

all of the points of how to

get started in this process,

which can feel really

daunting to some people.

So I wanted to go through

some of the preliminary

steps that you go to

before you get to the point

where you're ready to start

asking questions of the therapist.

First of all, if you're new to the channel,

please subscribe and please

like the episode.

Also please share it with

anybody in your life who

you think could benefit

from the information.

I am not a mental health professional.

I'm not licensed.

I'm just an expert in my own

healing journey,

which I share extensively

on the podcast and on my YouTube channel.

If you are willing to

support the channel by becoming a member,

that's one of the best ways

to make sure that I'm able

to continue to make this content.

So let's dive into this topic.

First of all,

how do you even begin to find

a therapist?

A lot of people might think

that they would go to their

insurance company's website

and just look for mental

health professionals.

And that certainly is one

way that you can start.

However,

it's probably not the most time

effective way.

And also those therapists

aren't always vetted by the

insurance companies in thorough ways.

They do have to go through

some licensing requirements.

in order to be presented by

an insurance company.

But we'll get to some of

those things later.

First of all,

if you have a friend or a

family member who has gone

through some similar things

as you and has had a

positive experience with a therapist,

that can be a great place to start.

But I actually recommend

that you start with yourself first.

Sit down in a quiet space where you have

a half an hour or so just to

meditate a little bit about

why it is that you're

looking for therapeutic

services and some of the

symptoms and things that

have been interfering with

your daily life.

If you can be as honest as

possible about your

negative feelings and

behaviors and sort of list

those things without shame,

That is a really good place

to start because then you

have a comprehensive idea

of what it is that you're

looking for in the first place.

So I would recommend just

going through your day in

your mind mentally,

thinking about maybe

yesterday or the day before

or a day that you had a really tough day.

and think about how your

life is not as great as you

want it to be right now and

what you think that therapy

can help you accomplish.

For example,

if you have a hard time

getting out of bed in the morning,

finding motivation,

or if you're finding that

the day-to-day things that you used to do,

you just don't enjoy them as much,

or if there's a hobby or

pastime that you've

recently quit because of

just feelings of overwhelm

or sadness or things like that.

Obviously,

if you've had a major life event,

a major life change,

if you've lost someone

close to you or you've

ended a relationship,

those are all things that

you would want to mention

to your therapist.

So you're going to want to

list all of these things,

symptoms and events in your

life that you think that

you might need help with.

Be as concise as possible,

usually in a preliminary

call with a therapist.

They don't want to spend a

huge amount of time with

you just seeing if you're going to fit.

But you do want to give your

therapist an idea of what

they're going to be

unpacking with you so that

if they're not really

suited to give you the kind

of treatment that's going

to help you most,

they can refer you to someone who will.

Nobody expects you to be

super educated about

different therapeutic

modalities or different

healing techniques that therapists use.

But it is a really good idea

to have a general idea.

If, for example,

you're dealing with

childhood trauma and you

know that already,

then you're going to want

to seek out someone who

specializes in that.

Sometimes it's good to just

start the process with a therapist,

knowing that after six months or so,

you might need to change to

someone who is more a

specialist in a specific

area or that practices a

specific type of humanity.

What I would recommend most, though,

is that you don't put it

off and that you just start,

even though it feels like a

daunting process,

starting with this short

meditation about symptoms and

qualities that you're trying

to change or difficult

circumstances in your life,

this is a really good place to start.

It only takes a few minutes to do that.

And it can just be one step

in the process of beginning

to hire a therapist.

So after you've made your

list of things that you

want to talk with a

therapist about or things

that you want to dig into,

the next thing is a

The next thing,

the next step in the

process would be to start

locating therapists in your area.

And there's lots of

different ways to do this.

I mentioned before talking

to friends and family

members who've had positive

experiences with therapists

is a place to start,

but knowing that your

friends and family members

may not have the exact same

symptoms as you,

or the same issues as you

that you want to address.

and knowing that the

therapist that they've gone

to may not be a specialist

in the area that you need.

So that can be a good place

for suggestions.

If nothing else,

you could call that

therapist that has been

highly recommended and say, hey,

this is what I'm looking for.

Is that something you do or

can you recommend me to someone else?

So that's one place to start.

Another place to start is by

going to Google reviews in your area,

looking for therapists in your area.

For example, you can just go to Google,

you can type in trauma

therapists in my area,

and it'll come up with all

of the little dots that

will tell you where these people are.

Go ahead and click on the practice,

go to their website,

read their Google reviews and

do as much research as you

can on the therapy practice

itself and on the

therapists that are listed

on their website as providers.

And also, I can't stress this enough,

go and read those Google

reviews because a lot of

times you might have a

great therapist who's

working at an office whose

policies are not the best,

or you might have a great

group of therapists working

in one location,

but there may be negative

reviews about a particular

therapist in that group

that has overall positive reviews.

So you wanna really do some

research into the

therapists that are in your area.

If you're looking for telehealth,

you can obviously expand

your search to a lot wider,

a lot broader area.

However, when you're starting therapy,

I don't really recommend

telehealth at first because

there is a component of

connection that happens

live that doesn't really

happen when you're just

across a video screen from someone.

My therapist went to

telehealth after I began

therapy and after I had

been in therapy for a really long time.

And that was fine for the

fact that we had already

had a relationship

established at that time.

And so it wasn't a problem

for us to do telehealth.

It didn't interfere with my

therapeutic process.

But I don't think it's a

process that I would have

been able to start without.

over the video screen

especially given the fact

that I had so much trauma

to dig into I really needed

to be live in person with

somebody your therapist is

going to get a lot of

information about your body

language your tone of voice

your inflections and things

that they can't really

observe on a video screen

and so I think it's

important to be in person

at first if you possibly

can be now if you're

experiencing troubling

symptoms and you need help right away

Definitely some of those

online resources can be really helpful,

like the 988 hotline.

And also there are some

therapy apps where you can

download an app and meet

with a therapist over video call.

And some insurance companies

will even cover same day

visits for those types of

things if you're

experiencing those types of symptoms.

Now,

once you have made a list of different

therapists that you want to talk to,

either through finding them

on Google reviews or getting a referral,

you can still,

you can always go to the

insurance company website.

You can look at the

providers that are covered

by your insurance plan and

then go and do the research

to read reviews and other

information about them.

Do a lot of Google searching

with the person's name.

and therapy practice or

their name and the word reviews with it.

That's going to give you a

lot more information than

they're going to give you

on your insurance company website.

I would do the same thing.

If you are going to

psychology.com looking for

therapists in your area,

those therapists actually,

most of them actually pay

to be listed on psychology.com.

And so I'm not really sure

about what the vetting

process is like behind the scenes,

but if you're paying to be

listed on a site,

Generally speaking,

there's not a lot of

research that goes into listing someone.

If they're licensed and

they're credentialed,

they're going to get listed.

But just because someone has

licensing and credentialing

doesn't necessarily mean

that they are competent or ethical.

So it's really,

really important to do some

other research into those therapists.

And here's where I just want

to take a moment to say the

mental health field is full

of people on a very broad

spectrum of health in their own world.

Some therapists go into the

mental health arena

thinking that they're going to be able to,

by study,

fix and solve some of their own

mental health challenges.

And obviously that's not the case.

It would be like a doctor

going to medical school

because he had a broken

foot at one point and wants

to know how to heal it.

Well, sure,

he could specialize in podiatry

and all of those kinds of things,

but that doesn't

necessarily mean he's going

to be competent at it just

because he's had the condition,

et cetera.

It can be kind of a tricky

place to find somebody who's competent.

And that's why we're going

through this in the first place.

I've come across a lot of

therapists who have not

done their own work.

And that's one of the

questions that we're going

to get to on the guide of

how to hire a therapist.

You're going to want to talk

to them about their work

that they've done

personally on their own

mental health issues,

because all of us need some

kind of guidance and help.

None of us were raised by

perfect parents in perfect

environments where we had

perfectly healthy

relationships throughout

our entire lives.

So we're all going to need

some guidance and direction in this area.

The next thing I want to say

is that there can be

dangerous therapists out

there who do real harm.

We've actually seen some of

these in the news lately, Jodi Hildebrand,

Maurice Harker.

There are a lot of

therapists who have done

real harm to their patients.

And so it is really

important to not only vet

the person with reviews from other people,

but also with your own

research and by asking them,

the questions that we're

going to go over here in just a minute.

I recommend that when you

have your list ready and

you're getting ready to

call and talk to some therapists,

you can just use this simple script.

Hi, my name is Megan.

I got your information off

of your website for your

practice and I read some of your reviews.

I'm considering hiring you

as a therapist and I would

like to ask you some

questions about your practice.

Is now a good time to do that?

Now,

a lot of therapists will want you to

schedule an appointment to get that done.

If they want to charge you

just for this initial process,

I would be really skeptical of that.

Most therapists will give

you at least 15 or 20

minutes of their time to

just see if you're going to

be some kind of a good fit,

even if it's just on the

phone and not in person.

In person is better because again,

You can read their body language.

You can listen to their

inflection and the way that

they interact with you in a

live environment.

On the phone is okay,

but in person is better.

So once you get your list of

therapists that you're going to call,

you can use that simple

script to set up an appointment.

Or if it's a voicemail, you can say, hi,

my name is Megan.

I got your information from your website.

I am looking for a therapist

and I'm wondering if you'd

be willing to sit down with

me for 15 or 20 minutes so

I can ask you a few questions.

You can use whatever version

of that script that you want to use.

Then when you get in there,

I'm going to share my

screen with you so that you

can see this list of

questions as we go over them together.

And you can use as many or

as few of these questions as you want.

Again,

this list was given to me by my

therapist.

His name is Tom Efrid and

his name is Tom and his

contact email is right

there on the screen for you.

So if you want to reach out to him,

you can.

I've let him know that I'm

going to be using this and

he was totally fine with it.

So he came up with these

questions and this is

something that he gives to

people who are looking for

therapy services.

And this is all information

that is really important to go over.

So first of all, he says,

information you have a right to know.

When you come for therapy,

you are buying a professional service.

You have a right to full

information about therapy.

The list below deals with

the most commonly asked questions,

but many people want to know more.

The more you know about your therapist,

the better your work will go.

So I would recommend reading

over this list before you

have your phone call with

any potential therapists

and maybe cross out any

questions that you don't

feel are important.

Add some questions that may

not be on here that you

think you would like to go

over with your therapist.

And then just sort of go

down the list as you're

speaking with the potential

therapist on your call list

and make some notes about

how they answer things that

you liked or didn't like

about what they said or

something that resonated with you.

So therapy and credentials

is the first topic here.

What will we do in therapy?

In other words,

is there a particular way that you handle

therapy?

Do we have exercises to do?

Is there going to be writing

and journaling?

Is it just going to be talking?

What are the expectations for that?

What will I have to do in therapy?

Do I just show up?

Do you need me to bring notes with me?

Should I take notes during the session?

Those kinds of things.

Could anything bad happen

because of therapy?

Now,

I will tell you the answer to this

question should be yes.

If you're digging into trauma,

it's really possible that

you're going to bring up

some feelings that you

haven't felt in a long time

or that you've pushed away

for a long time.

And it's possible for you to

feel worse after your first

few sessions of therapy.

It's really important that

your therapist give you an

honest answer to this

question and then let you

know what they will do if

you start to get worse.

And so that question is in

there just as a bit of a, I don't know,

red flag detector,

because a good therapist

worth their salt should be

willing to be honest with

you about the fact that

you're not always going to feel great

after therapy is over.

And it's possibly that you

could get a little bit

worse in the way that

you're feeling before you

start to get better,

which is kind of the next

set of questions.

What will I notice when I'm

getting better specifically?

About how long will it take

for me to see that I'm getting better?

Will you have any tests?

What for?

What kind?

How many of your clients

with my problem get better?

How many of your clients get worse?

How many people with the

same kind of problems I

have get better without therapy?

And how many get worse?

Again,

these are all questions that your

therapist should be able to

answer very honestly.

They should be honest about

their limitations.

They should also be honest

about timeframes.

Some therapists will just

say it takes how long it takes,

which is the next question.

How long will therapy take if they say,

well,

Some people are just in

therapy for the rest of

their lives if they have your condition.

That to me is a red flag.

Tom always told me that his

goal for me in therapy was

for me not to ever need him again.

And I think most competent

therapists should be able

to say that that's the case.

It's not really reasonable

for them to give you over

the phone the first time

they're meeting you a time

frame on when you're going to be,

quote unquote, completely healed.

None of us are completely healed.

But I can tell you in

working with my therapist,

after we'd worked together

intensively for about 18 months,

I was feeling significantly better.

My life was much improved.

My quality of life was much improved.

And I was having negative

symptoms very little of the time.

At that point,

we just set up a system for

me to check in with him

when I needed to go back

over something or when I

needed to revisit or when I

needed to dig into something new.

And so then it was just on a

case-by-case basis.

And things do come up.

Things still come up for me all the time.

I do still have to go see

him from time to time,

but I don't need him on a regular basis.

And our visits are getting

farther and farther in between.

And so that, to me, is...

good progress in therapy on

some very tough issues to work with.

And it was realistic

expectation that at some

point I'm going to need him

less and less.

And I think most therapists

should be able to say

something similar to that

when you're talking about

the amount of time you're

going to be in therapy.

What should I do if I feel

therapy isn't working?

All therapists should be willing to say,

if I'm not helping you,

I'm going to refer you out

to someone I think you'll

work with better.

They shouldn't be afraid to

let you go as a client if

things are not clicking.

And by the same token,

you should not be afraid to

be honest with your therapist and say,

I really don't feel like

I'm getting better.

And I feel like maybe I need

to work with somebody else

or work in a different way

or do a different healing modality.

And once you get into the

therapeutic process and you

start addressing issues,

then you can kind of start

to research different

therapy modalities if you

feel like things aren't working well.

And then you can sort of go

to your therapist and say, hey,

I've been looking into this.

Do you think this would help me?

And you guys can have that

conversation together.

How much training and

experience do you have?

Do you have a license?

What are your other qualifications?

And that's something that

all therapists should be

really open about.

You can and should go to the

state licensing

registration board and look

them up and make sure that

their license is current

and also make sure that

they don't have any pending

complaints or past

suspensions or revocations

of licensing in your state.

It might also be helpful to

Google your therapist's

name along with license

restriction or license

revocation and leave the

state blank so that you can

then see if it's possible

that they had something

happen in another state.

I don't know how common that is,

but that's definitely

something that I would do.

And then these last two

questions are pretty

specific to your therapist

and the answers that they

give are or are not going

to be satisfactory

depending on what your own

morals and values are.

So if you ask your therapist

about what kind of morals

and values do you have,

they should be able to

speak confidently about the

fact that they find family

very important or if

they're religious in any way,

if that is going to impact their

therapy provision for you.

If they have any kind of

idea that they're going to

try to impose their religious view on you,

I would run out of the

office and not walk because

therapists are not supposed

to impose their worldview

or their religious view on

their patients at all.

It's really unethical for them to do that.

And religion should only

come into the discussion if

you're wanting help figuring

out your spirituality or if

your religious values are

really important to you and

you want to include that in

the therapeutic process.

That's an important thing to

mention as well.

And then to whom can I talk

if I have a complaint about

therapy that you and I can't work out?

Of course,

every state has a licensing board,

but a lot of therapists

work within a practice that

is headed up by a

practitioner who is very experienced.

And generally speaking, if that's the case,

you should be able to talk

with the person running the

practice about the

individual therapists who

are representing the practice,

if that makes sense.

This, again,

should be a question that your

therapist should answer

honestly and they should

not be afraid of you

complaining to somebody if

things are not going well

in your therapeutic relationship.

If they are afraid of that,

that's a red flag right there.

If they're not willing to

give you the information

about who you can complain to.

that's another red flag so

the answers to all of these

questions are just you kind

of assessing what kind of a

person are they what kind

of a professional are they

are we going to be able to

work out differences with

each other and are things

going to go smoothly in

that arena or am I going to

be facing a struggle trying

to get what I need out of

this therapeutic

relationship now about therapy and help

Section B,

what other types of therapy or

help are available for my problems?

How often do these other

methods help people with

problems like mine?

What are the risks or limits

of these other methods?

Now,

this is something that you're kind of

digging a little bit deeper here.

Instead of who the therapist

is and what their process is,

you're talking now more

about your specific

condition and different

healing modalities for that condition.

That may not be something that you're

potential therapist is

willing to dig into on a

free visit or free first consultation,

but they should at least be

able to give you some

general answers to those questions.

It's also important to talk

about section C here,

how you set up appointments,

how long the sessions are,

if you have to pay,

if you need a longer session,

or if your session runs over,

what their policies are for cancellation,

things like that.

How can I reach you in an emergency?

This is an important one

because some therapists will say, well,

you can't reach me in an emergency.

These are my office hours at the end.

But it's important for them

to have a resource for you

if there is an emergency.

Like number four, if I can't reach you,

to whom can I talk?

And then number five,

what happens if the

weather's bad or I'm sick

and can't come to an appointment?

Cancellation policy and

charging for those types of situations.

They should be very clear with you.

about how you're going to

pay for therapy and what

their policies are

regarding all of those things.

Now, not all therapists take insurance.

And so it's important to

note that some therapists

may work on a sliding scale.

If you have insurance or

don't have insurance,

they may work on a sliding

scale according to your

income if you don't have insurance.

And they may be willing to

offer you some kind of a, you know,

a rate that they're willing

to work with you on

if they don't take insurance.

And so that's important to

get that out of the way in

the first place.

And if the financial

situation isn't going to

work out with a therapist,

that's a significant part

of your relationship.

And so it's important to

work with a therapist that

you can also work with financially.

You don't want to add the

additional stress

of having a financial

situation that doesn't work

out and you end up owing

more money than you thought you did,

or they end up billing

differently than you

thought or something like that.

It's just a hassle that you don't need.

So if somebody doesn't have

a written payment policy

that is very clear and easy to understand,

I would take a pass on that

person as well.

About confidentiality.

What kind of records do you

keep about my therapy?

Who is allowed to read those records?

Are there times you have to

tell others about the

personal things we might talk about?

What are the limits of confidentiality?

And again, how do I file a complaint?

Now,

confidentiality in the therapeutic

relationship, generally speaking,

therapists have to keep

what you tell them confidential,

but there are some

situations like if you are

thinking about harming

yourself or someone else,

they have to report that.

and if you are or if the

records of your therapeutic

sessions get subpoenaed by

a court order of some kind.

So the therapist should be

very honest with you about

the limitations of the confidentiality.

They don't have to report

self-harm ideation in every instance,

but there are limits of that.

And that's really important

for you and your therapist

to understand together,

especially if that's one of

the symptoms that you're experiencing.

It's really important to

have that clear at the very

beginning and so that you

feel comfortable sharing

exactly how you feel and

you're not trying to

minimize symptoms or

dismiss symptoms that are

really important for you to talk about.

Diving back into money here,

what will you charge me for

each appointment?

When do you want to be paid?

Do I need to pay for an

appointment I didn't come

to or if I call you and cancel it?

What I would add in here,

what happens if you cancel

an appointment or if you're

late to an appointment?

Do I need to pay for phone

calls or text messages?

Will you ever raise the fee you charge me?

When?

How much notice will I be given?

If I lose some of my income,

can my fee be lowered?

If I don't pay my bill, what will you do?

These are all questions to ask.

They may not be totally

appropriate for the very

first session that you're

going to just vet out your therapist,

but they should at least be

able to share with you

their written policies.

And it could be easier for

them to just say,

I'm going to email you my

payment policies.

I'm going to email you my

cancellation policies.

I'm going to email you my

confidentiality policies.

You should read all of those

very thoroughly and become

very familiar with them before you

engage in hiring that person.

So that's a list of

questions to start with.

You may have more ideas of

other things that you want

to ask your therapist right off the bat.

It's very important to the

therapeutic process that

you feel really comfortable

being totally honest with

your therapist about all your feelings.

So if you're getting a vibe like,

you're not feeling safe in

sharing your symptoms or

asking these questions even

or if you're getting

answers that feel

standoffish or curt in tone

then maybe move on to the

next person make a note of

that in your in your record

on your list of questions

that you asked that you

didn't feel safe talking to

them that's a really

important thing to note now

let's say that you've gone through

a call with three or four

different therapists and

you're really not finding

that it's clicking.

What I would do is kind of

go back over and see if

there is a common theme of

things that you felt like

you weren't getting

together on or a reason why

you felt like you weren't

connecting with that person.

And again,

this is where I'd recommend if

you did all phone calls,

choose one or two of them

to meet in person and say,

I'd like to meet you

just for a few minutes and

ask a few more questions if that's okay.

If they insist on charging

you for that in-person meeting,

that's all right.

Sometimes it's the cost of

finding a great therapist

to go through this interview process.

So as I said,

most therapists will be fine

with 15 or 20 minutes of

initial questions.

those are better done in person.

But if you do them on the

phone and then you decide

you want to meet with them,

it's appropriate for them

to charge you for that in-person meeting.

That's why I encourage that

these initial questions get

asked in person rather than

over the telephone.

And you're just going to

have to sort of find a

niche of people who are

willing to answer these

questions for you on a

complimentary basis and

then dig into things later.

So

It's perfectly appropriate

to sit for a session with a

therapist and go ahead and

pay for that initial session.

And then note how you feel afterwards.

Do you feel heard?

Do you feel understood?

Do you feel like your words

are valuable to the therapist?

Are they listening intently

to what you're saying?

Are they responding appropriately?

Are they allowing you time

to present what your issue

is and then giving you a

thoughtful response based

on what you said?

Or does it seem like they're

sort of giving you canned responses?

Does it seem like they're

distracted and not really

listening to you?

Now,

most therapists will take notes during

the session because they're

required to keep notes.

That's one of the things

that therapists do.

So don't be offended if

they're taking notes as

you're talking because

they're required to do that.

And it's actually a really helpful,

good thing for them to do

so that they make sure that

they're tracking with your

progress and the different

things that you're talking about.

But if your therapist seems

like they're not really

listening that much and

they're just sort of

writing but not responding ever,

that can be a red flag, right?

If they're sort of distracted,

if they pick up their phone

a lot or if they're looking

at their computer screen or

something like that,

those can all be red flags.

So it's really important

that you feel like your

therapist is really

listening intently and

responding appropriately to

the things that you say.

So after that first session,

I really recommend going

and doing some journaling

about how the session went, how you felt.

Did you feel a connection

with this person?

Do you feel like they're

going to be helpful in your

therapeutic process?

Or did you feel like

something was kind of off

and I didn't really feel

like we clicked or that

they were listening well?

Then it's time to maybe move

on to the next person on your list.

If you have that successful first session,

good for you.

Great.

You found somebody that you can work with.

Continue to notice how you

feel about the connection

between you and your

therapist as your work goes forward.

If at any time you feel like

things have shifted a

little or changed or you

feel like you're not being

as valued and honored as

you were in that initial session,

it's perfectly appropriate

for you to bring that up.

There have been times when I've had to say,

you know,

as I was thinking about our last session,

I really felt like there

was something off about our

connection there,

and I didn't really feel

like you were understanding

what I was saying.

And cite specific examples if you can.

For example,

when I was talking about this

situation with my mom,

it felt like you sort of tuned out.

And it sounded like your

response was not as

thoughtful as it normally is.

And like you were sort of

giving me a catch all answer.

Can we go back over that?

And maybe it's something as

simple as this is something

my therapist said to me,

your situation reminds me a

lot of my relationship with my mom.

And even though I've gone

through the work to heal from that,

it doesn't mean that it's

not going to affect me when

I think about it.

So if I seemed a little distant,

it's because for a moment,

I had some feelings come up for me.

But

Let's re-engage with that

conversation and let's make

sure that you get your needs met.

A healthy therapist-patient

relationship is going to

have some bumps in the road like that.

And if you just let those

things go and don't ever bring them up,

the therapist is going to

assume that everything is

fine with you and they're

going to keep doing what

they've done or acting the

way they have or treating

you the way that they've

been treating you.

If you want something to

change in that relationship,

you have to bring up those

times when you feel like

things are not going as

well as you would like to.

Now,

if it gets to the point where you feel

like you need to fire your therapist,

things are really bad,

you've tried to communicate

some issues to them,

and the same things keep

coming up over and over,

it's perfectly appropriate for you to

write an email or leave a

voicemail or even in person to say,

I've really appreciated the

time that you've put into

our work together.

I'm feeling like things

aren't working anymore.

I think I need a change and

I would appreciate it if

you would share your notes

with my next therapist when

they contact you.

It's perfectly appropriate

for you to ask for that.

I'll share an experience,

a couple of experiences

that not me personally,

but other people have had.

There was one situation

where the therapist kept

bringing up their own,

the person was going to the

therapist because they were

going through a divorce and

the therapist kept bringing

up their own experiences in

their own divorce.

And while some of that can be illustrative,

if they're trying to help

you understand a situation,

it's definitely a red flag

if the therapist keeps

saying things like,

Oh man, I know what you're talking about.

When my ex-wife did blah, blah, blah.

Oh, that was awful.

And if they're just

commiserating and venting to you,

that is the opposite of

what they're supposed to be doing.

But if they say something like, yeah,

I went through something

similar and here's what

worked for me in that situation.

Do you think that would be

helpful for you?

That's different, right?

There was another situation

in which a mother had

brought her child to see a therapist and

The therapy seemed to be going okay,

but the child was saying like,

I really don't feel like

she listens to me and I

don't really understand

what she's trying to tell me to do.

Mom has a conversation with a therapist.

Therapist gets offended that

she's been called out for, you know,

not being helpful or not listening.

Therapist says, this is a child, you know,

their perception of how

things should work in

therapy might be skewed and

they get defensive.

Red flag, time to move on.

There was another situation

where mom had brought her

kids to a therapist.

Things seem to be going well.

Kids seem to be feeling

better about at least

talking about things,

but therapist wasn't

necessarily giving them

helpful tools to use.

They were just sort of

listening to the problems and saying,

well,

I hope you feel better and not

really giving them concrete

things that they could do

to help improve their situation.

That's another sort of red flag.

Again,

important for mom to be involved and

talk to the therapist and say,

how are things going?

When I took my kids to a therapist,

I would sit down with them

for the first five minutes and say,

this is what I've noticed this week.

Here's what I think maybe

they would need to talk to you about.

Then I leave the room.

My kid goes into the therapist.

They have a conversation at

the end of the therapy session.

I go in for the last five

minutes and they say,

we had a good conversation.

Here are some things that

I've given them to work on

over the coming week.

So their therapy when their

children is still confidential,

but you should be actively

involved in what is the

therapist telling my child

to work on and what things

do I need to be looking out for?

So that's really important too.

There was another situation

where a friend of mine was

going to a therapist, things seemed

things seem to be going okay,

but then she learned

through another resource,

and I don't know if it was

another patient or another

friend or a review that she

read or something like that,

found out that this

therapist was involved in a

legal battle that was not going well,

and the therapist was not

behaving ethically in the legal battle.

Now,

your call as to whether you want to

continue a relationship with a therapist

who is not behaving

ethically in another arena,

but chances are if they're

behaving unethically in one

area of their life,

they're probably behaving

unethically in their

therapy practice as well.

So again,

that's up to your discretion as

to whether you would want

to talk to that therapist

about what was going on or

what you heard or saw or

whatever the case is.

The point is of all of this,

therapists are human beings.

They have lives outside of therapy.

And some therapists, in fact,

most healthy therapists

also have therapists.

Because sometimes,

like the example I was telling you before,

sometimes an issue that a

patient brings up

will trigger a feeling or

recall a bad memory that

the therapist had,

and then they have to go to

their therapist and talk about them.

So most healthy therapists

are either actively in

therapy or they've done

their own healing work or

they have a person that

they go to to talk to when issues arise.

And I would ask your

therapist about that as well.

What if we talk about

something that makes you feel bad?

Do you have a person that you talk to?

Do you go to therapy?

Are you in therapy now?

Those are all important

questions to ask as well.

It is also important to note, again,

therapists have their own

lives outside of their practice.

And while mental health

issues can be really

serious and pressing and

sometimes very urgent,

not all therapists are

available after hours.

In fact,

most of them try to have a healthy

work-life balance where

they don't talk to patients

or clients after they've gone home.

Most of them do, though,

have some kind of an

answering service or an emergency service

where someone can be

contacted if you need it in an emergency.

The times that I have heard

of people where things

don't go well with their therapist,

a lot of times it's because

the patient is demanding a

lot of the therapist's time

outside of the session.

And that's something that

you need to talk with your

therapist about.

If it's an expectation that

you have that they be available,

it's really important you

talk about those time

boundaries and that you

honor the boundaries.

that they set for you as well.

That keeps your relationship

healthy and it makes sure

that you understand the

limitations of what they

can and cannot provide for you.

So I hope this has been

helpful on how to help.

I hope that this has been

helpful on how to hire a therapist.

Again, if you have questions,

I would love to hear them

in the comments.

Please reach out to me.

One of the services that I

provide as a coach is to

help people find a therapist.

So if you've watched this

video or listened to this

podcast and it all feels

super overwhelming for you,

I would love to help guide

you through this process

because finding a therapist

can be daunting and it is

really important to find

someone that you connect

with so that you feel safe

telling them all about your

symptoms and struggles.

in a really comprehensive way.

If you are able to,

I would really appreciate

it if you would subscribe to the channel,

like the video,

and share it with people

who you think would find

the information helpful.

Thanks for joining us,

and we'll see you again

soon on The Midlife Revolution.