How to Find a Good Therapist

If you're reading this, chances are something in your life feels difficult right now, and you're wondering whether therapy might help. Maybe you've been thinking about it for a while. Maybe you've tried before and it didn't go well. Either way, finding the right therapist can feel overwhelming before you've even begun, and most of the advice out there doesn't tell you what actually matters.

I've been a psychotherapist for many years, and I practise under two different systems: as a registered psychotherapist here in New Zealand, and as a UKCP registered psychotherapist for my clients in Scotland. I also turn people away more often than you might expect, and I'll explain why, because understanding that will help you choose well. Here's what I'd want you to know.

It's not about the approach, it's about the fit

Many people start their search by choosing a type of therapy. They read about CBT, or somatic work, or another approach, and decide that's the one for them. The approach does matter, and I'll come back to it. But what matters more is whether you feel comfortable enough with this particular person to open up to them.

Therapy is a relationship before it's anything else. The research consistently shows that the quality of that relationship is one of the strongest predictors of whether therapy works. You can find someone trained in exactly the approach you read about, and if you don't feel heard by them, very little will change.

Why a lower fee can cost you more

I understand why people compare on price. Therapy is a real commitment, and a lower fee looks like the sensible choice. But price can be misleading.

A less experienced therapist may cost less per session, and the work may take much longer to reach the heart of what's going on. Someone with real depth of experience can often get there more quickly, and that changes the true cost completely. Paying less each week isn't the same as paying less overall.

That doesn't mean expensive means good. It means the fee on its own tells you very little, and it shouldn't be the thing you decide on.

Make sure they truly work with what you're bringing

Here's where the approach and the specialism do matter, and matter a great deal. If you're coming with trauma, you need someone who is genuinely trauma informed, not someone who lists trauma among fifteen other things on a profile. Trauma work done without care can do real harm, and I'll say more about that below.

The same goes for specific diagnoses. Sometimes people approach me because they like the way I work, and I have to be honest with them that what they're bringing sits outside my experience. Someone with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, for example, deserves a therapist who has real experience in that territory. Liking a therapist's style isn't the same as that therapist being right for you, and a good therapist will tell you when they're not.

So ask directly: do you have experience with what I'm bringing? A therapist worth seeing will answer honestly, and will point you towards someone else if the answer is no.

Check they're registered, and know what it means

Here in New Zealand we're fortunate. Psychotherapy is regulated by law. You can't simply call yourself a psychotherapist. To use the title, a practitioner has to have trained with an approved provider and be registered and regulated under legislation, which means there are real legal protections for you as a client and a formal way to hold a practitioner accountable if something goes wrong. Checking that your therapist is registered takes a minute, and it's worth doing.

I also practise in the UK, and the difference between the two countries is striking. There, anyone can call themselves a therapist or a counsellor. The titles have no legal protection at all, and accountability depends on whether a practitioner has voluntarily joined a professional body. It has shown me just how much the safeguards we have here actually protect people, and why it still pays to check. Not every title is covered by regulation, so if you're looking at someone who isn't a registered psychotherapist, ask which professional body they belong to and what code of ethics they work under.

Where to look

The usual advice is to browse a directory. Honestly, I think a therapist's own website tells you far more. A directory profile gives you a photo and a few hundred words written to a template. A website gives you a fuller sense of the person: how they think, how they describe the work, what they care about, a little of who they are. You're trying to sense a relationship, and you can learn a lot from how someone presents themselves when given the space.

So search, read websites properly, and shortlist the people whose way of talking about therapy resonates with you. Then check the registration, and then get in touch.

What to ask, and how to know a good answer

Any question is a valid question. You're entitled to ask how a therapist works, what happens with confidentiality, and whether they have experience with the issues you're bringing. Confidentiality is something many people quietly worry about rather than asking. Please ask.

And here's something worth knowing about the answers. What matters most isn't the content, it's how the exchange feels. A good answer leaves you feeling listened to and understood, with a sense of how the two of you might work together. A red flag is feeling dismissed or unheard. You'll know the difference. Trust it.

What a first session should feel like

Don't expect to feel comfortable in a first session. First sessions are anxiety provoking for almost everyone, and no therapist can take that away entirely. You won't be completely open either. Honesty in therapy builds over time, with trust. It isn't something you produce on demand in week one.

What you can hope for is this: that by the end of the session you feel more reassured and more at ease than when you arrived, that you felt heard and understood enough, and that you can imagine opening up to this person over time. Enough is the important word here. You're not looking for instant depth. You're looking for the beginnings of safety.

Why how often you come matters so much

This is somewhere I hold a firmer line than most articles will, because I see what happens when it goes wrong.

Weekly sessions work best, and the research supports this. An hour a week is already a small window in which to shift patterns that may have been with you for decades. Stretch it thinner and the work starts to lose its thread.

I do see clients fortnightly where money makes weekly impossible, and it can work, but it asks more of you. You'll need to put real energy into working with what we've explored between sessions, because there's more time to carry it alone.

Monthly sessions are where I say no, and I turn away clients who ask for them. That surprises people, so let me explain. Therapy opens things. Whatever we touch in a session needs somewhere to go afterwards, and part of my role is to hold and contain that process with you. If I see you once a month, everything we open sits with you alone for four weeks, and I have no sense of how you're managing it. That isn't therapy on a budget. It's unsafe work, and a responsible therapist will say so rather than take the booking.

On where you meet: online therapy works, and much of my practice is online. But if you can manage two or three sessions in person at the beginning, do. Being in the room together gives you both a sense of each other, including body language and presence, that makes everything afterwards work better, whether you stay in person or move online.

If it doesn't feel right, say so

There's no set number of sessions after which you should decide a therapist isn't right for you. What I can tell you is how a good therapist handles it.

I make it clear from the very start that I want to know how the work is landing for you. Whether what we're exploring fits, whether the way we're working feels right, whether something is actually happening. Many of the people who come to me carry long patterns of people pleasing, which makes this exact conversation the hardest one to have. Often that pattern is part of what brought them to therapy in the first place. So I work to make it genuinely safe to raise.

And if we talk it through and agree the fit isn't right, I don't take it personally, and I'll help you find someone who is right. I want the best for you, whether or not that involves me. That's the response you should expect from any good therapist. If raising a doubt is met with defensiveness, you've learned something important.

It's worth saying that there's a difference between poor fit and the ordinary discomfort of therapy touching something real. Good therapy is often uncomfortable. The difference usually shows in the relationship. Discomfort while still feeling fundamentally heard is usually the work. Discomfort while feeling dismissed or unsafe is usually the fit.

When to walk away

A few things I've seen and heard over the years that should never happen.

Trauma work without safety. If a therapist takes you back into traumatic material without first building safety and without careful, gentle pacing, that's dangerous. I'll write about this properly in a future post, because it deserves more than a paragraph.

Boundary problems. Sessions regularly running over or being cut short. A therapist contacting you between sessions about the content of your therapy, or emailing you about what happened in the room. The boundaries of therapy exist to keep the work safe, and a therapist who can't hold them can't hold you.

The therapist taking over. Therapy is your space to explore what's going on for you. A therapist who fills it with advice has stopped doing therapy.

Their worldview, not yours. A therapist bringing you their religious or personal worldview is a clear no. You're there to find your own understanding, not to be given theirs.

What working with me looks like

Since you may be reading this while deciding whether to get in touch, it's only fair to tell you how I work.

In the beginning, we're getting to know each other. I'm coming to understand, in a deeper way, what brings you here: your emotional patterns, your relationships, what your body holds, the beliefs you've formed about the world, your history, and how all of these weave together. Slowly a picture forms, one we build together, so that we can both say: this is what's happening, and this is what would need to shift for things to be different. Because that's why you come. You want something to be different.

What we do from there depends on what you need for that change to happen. For some people it's learning to regulate difficult emotions. For others it's gently unpacking the past. Often it's both, in a sequence that makes sense for you. The whole process is collaborative. You'll always know where the work is heading, because we decided it together.

And the pace, especially at the start, is gentle and slow, so that you can feel safe before we go anywhere demanding.

If you've been sitting on the fence

Maybe you've been thinking about therapy for months, or years. Maybe you tried before and it went badly. Maybe part of you worries that needing help means something is wrong with you.

There's nothing wrong with you. Often a bad experience simply means the fit wasn't right, and fit, as I hope you've seen, is most of what matters. And remember: you are the one choosing. When you meet a therapist, you're deciding as much as they are. Is this right for me? Do I choose this relationship? You can always walk away. Holding on to that changes the whole experience of looking.

The last thing I'll say is the thing I most want you to hear. Sitting on the fence feels like the safer option, but it's actually the harder one. Carrying what you're carrying alone, month after month, costs more than the work of facing it ever will. It just seems the other way around from where you're standing.

If you'd like to find out whether we might be a good fit, you're very welcome to get in touch, with no pressure and no obligation on either side.