How To Find A Good Therapist
Posted by: citizen1ita on: September 9, 2009
- In: Health/Diet | Tips
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This is more simple than finding a good physician. (See previous post) First of all, a licensed therapist is someone who can provide ongoing “talk” therapy. Most licensed therapists are not also M.D.s, meaning they can’t prescribe medications for “mood” or “mental” disorders. If you need a Psychiatrist, an M.D., for medication management, than see my previous post. Personally, I don’t go to my Psychiatrist anymore because all they did was prescribe my anti-anxiety medication. That’s all they could do. Well, guess what, a D.O. or any other M.D. can do the same thing. If you actually need emotional treatment other that just medication, you need to find a good licensed therapist.
However, there are other more alternative forms of emotional therapies out there that have worked for me, and aren’t performed by licensed therapists and I’ll list those at the end of this post.
After you’ve done a search for licensed therapists in your area, or located them on your insurance’s website, check them out online. See if they have reviews or a website. If they have a website, you can usually find out all you need to know about them (without meeting them in person) there.
If no website, or even if they do have a website, call or email them and ask:
#1 Do you have a lot of success treating (whatever your emotional issue is)?
#2 Do you do EMDR? If so, do you use the eye-movement, tapping, or binaural beats? (Hopefully they will answer that they use any and all of them, depending on the client)
#3 Are you familiar with EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and do you use it?
#4 Do you use hypnotherapy?
#5 How many years have you been in practice? (In this case, as long as they know the above forms of therapy, the more years the better.)
Most therapists use cognitive behavior therapy and other traditional forms of therapy, but nowadays a lot of therapists have training in the above forms of therapy too. Find someone who does. EMDR especially.
You should be able to speak personally on the phone with the therapist to get these questions answered, and they should have a kind and willing manner. You should like their voice.
Try to schedule a visit with more than one therapist so you can decide who you’d like to start seeing after meeting with each of them and getting a feel for their personality and their approach, to see who is a good match for you.
Other non-licensed practitioners who do emotional work are:
lay hypnotists (one organization is the IMDHA)
Bodytalk practitioners (Bodytalk Systems)
EFT practitioners (emofree.com )
I have found relief with Bodytalk and with self-hypnosis. Though many people swear by EFT. My therapist has had success with clients using EFT, but we’ve not tried it together yet. I haven’t had much success with EFT on my own for my particular issues. At this time EMDR has given me the most resolution and the licensed therapist I go to does EMDR, hypnotherapy, EFT, and cognitive therapy.
Good luck.
citizen1ita
