Posted by mair on January 16, 2005, at 13:55:23
In reply to Re: How Did You Choose Your Therapist? » mair, posted by fallsfall on January 16, 2005, at 10:43:01
I may take you up on that some time, but now I'm not really in the market.
I'm just really impressed that some people pick their Ts so systematically and with certain goals in mind. I picked my first pdoc/t because he was the only one I knew. I wasn't comfortable asking around for names, and I wouldn't have known the right questions to ask anyway. I just sort of threw myself into his hands, although in retrospect, I'm not at all sure I wouldn't have fared better with someone else.
That same pdoc/t referred me to my current therapist after I told him I wanted to do a different kind of therapy than he offered. So he referred me to her for CBT and now I've been seeing her 2x a week for more intensive therapy for what seems like forever. I certainly didn't interview her or consider other choices, although I might have ended up with her anyway, even if he hadn't referred her. Years ago, my son was in therapy for a brief time when he was in fourth grade. His t was associated with a major teaching hospital and she left at the end of the school year to go to another university. My son was pretty much finished with therapy by then anyway, but his t gave me the name of my current t when she left, as someone to take my son to if I felt he needed it again. I tucked that name away on a piece of paper, and came across it when cleaning some box out years later, at around the same time that I was thinking I needed to find someone new.
I think if I had to find a new therapist now, I might be able to go through the process you followed. I just know so much more now about therapies and what works for me, and I'm more comfortable now talking about my illness and my mental health history. I still think it would be hard.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:442549
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050111/msgs/442788.html