How to choose a psychotherapist and not run into a charlatan. Instruction

Among the people who have ever reached psychotherapy, two types can be clearly distinguished: those who came in and got help, and those who found psychotherapy ineffective and labeled it “some kind of bullshit”. Such a false impression is often created due to the fact that a person has not found “his” specialist. Finding the right specialist can take more than one month or even a year, but the process will go faster if you know what to look for and where to look. For those who are disappointed in therapy or are just thinking about it, The Secret, together with psychologists and psychotherapists, has prepared a detailed guide on how to choose and check your doctor without running into an impostor.

What is the difference between a psychologist, a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist

First you need to decide which specialist you still need to get. To a psychologist? Psychotherapist? Or even a psychiatrist? In fact, it all depends on the severity of your condition.

If we are talking about deep psychological problems that prevent you from living, but have not yet acquired the form of an illness or severe pathology, the best choice would be psychotherapist or clinical psychologist. These are universal specialists with specialized medical education, who combine the functions of a psychologist and a psychiatrist. They will help you choose the right combination of psychotherapy and drug treatment (if necessary) in your case.

Psychotherapists and clinical psychologists specialize in “mild” psychiatry (neurosis, depression, anxiety disorders, panic attacks, mild PTSD).

If, based on the results of a preliminary examination, one or another psychiatric diagnosis is suspected in you, it is better not to delay the trip to psychiatrist He specializes in the treatment of precisely such diseases. To help you cope with the disease, the specialist will select the appropriate drug therapy. Which, however, may well be combined with “heart-to-heart conversations.”

In case of sleep disorders, appetite, deterioration of cognitive functions, loss of touch with reality, contact a person with a medical education. And don’t hesitate to go straight to a psychiatrist.

If you do not feel your problem as a disease that significantly worsens the quality of your life, but you just want to get to know yourself better, learn how to find ways out of crisis situations, you should start with psychologist.

The psychotherapist is more prepared and focused on a deeper study due to the fact that he has not only a higher psychological education, but also a mastered method of work. This allows you to work with deeper problems, attitudes, some clinical diagnoses. A psychologist, on the other hand, has a higher education in general, but does not have the arsenal of knowledge that a psychotherapist has. The psychologist works in a consulting format. The people call both psychologists, so it is important to understand the education of a specialist in order to understand what to expect.

Roughly speaking, the difference between a psychologist and a psychotherapist, clinical psychologist and psychiatrist is that such a specialist does not have the right to prescribe drugs, make diagnoses and work with diseases of major and minor psychiatry.

As a rule, counseling is a short-term process. A psychologist does not treat, but informs a person about his condition, helps to solve some point problems and understand the world of psychotherapy. In order to work in depth with the patient’s personality and help him change the quality of life, the psychologist will have to receive additional specialized education in a specific psychotherapeutic method.

We go from the problem

At the stage of choosing a specialist, figure out which psychotherapeutic method he owns and what tasks this method solves. It often turns out that for a particular case, one or another approach may be ineffective or simply harmful.

When communicating, ask the doctor about his specialization. You can’t be a professional in everything, usually a psychotherapist has two or three topics in which he feels like a fish in water. For example, some specialize in eating disorders, others in parent-child or couple relationships, others in “you” with “light” psychiatry, etc.

A very important criterion for choosing a specialist is the approach in which he works. For example, the Gestalt method is more about feelings, psychoanalysis is more about the past, body therapy is about the body, CBT is about the way of thinking, positive psychotherapy is about resources, etc. And although many methods incorporate different aspects and can be interchanged, Still, it is worth understanding in what approach the specialist works in order to understand how he will help you. If you want fast results, look for short term methods and professionals who claim it. If you want to qualitatively unearth the reasons for your attitudes, to understand yourself, then choose a long work, such as psycho- and transactional analysis, symbol drama, gestalt, etc.

According to psychologist Daria Yausheva, depending on the request, supportive therapy (for example, when working with grief) or behavioral therapy (for ADHD) may be needed. There are consultants who work with general requests, but here it is important to look at the direction in which the psychologist practices. There are methods with proven effectiveness, there are those that seem to work, but do not have a sufficient scientific basis.

Among the methods with proven effectiveness are cognitive behavioral therapy and its offshoots (ACT, CFT, schema therapy, DBT, MBT and others), methods based on the theory of attachment (EMDR, EFT). A list of approaches is, for example, on the site of the Community of Clinical Psychologists.

Yausheva noted that it is worth paying attention to the format of the relationship between the doctor and the patient, adopted in a particular approach. For example, in Gestalt therapy, the therapist and the patient are equal, the appeal to “you” is welcome there. In a cognitive-behavioral relationship, the relationship is distant, and the psychologist will refer to you as “you.” In schema therapy, there is the concept of limited parenthood, when the therapist becomes that warm and accepting person who was not in the environment of the client in childhood.

Specialists have different attitudes towards the interaction between meetings. Someone welcomes, someone strictly limits communication to the session. Think about what approach and format of communication is closer to you.

Polyakova added that the divisions according to approaches to therapy are quite arbitrary and, of course, therapy can be done in different approaches. This does not at all limit work on strictly defined problems. An exception may be explicit contraindications, when only a certain style of work affects the clinical features of behavior.

In addition, as clinical psychologist Yuri Gryazev noted, if the problem is extreme (associated with violence, disaster, etc.), look for a specialist who knows the tools of extreme psychology.

What to look for when choosing a psychotherapist

Before choosing a specialist, you need to do a little research. And then literally interview your future psychotherapist.

The first thing to do is to find a specialist profile on the Internet. There are many sites where questionnaires of psychologists are collected. One of the most complete Russian databases is b17, but you can also pay attention to the websites of private clinics and online services for selecting psychologists for face-to-face or online consultations.

If a person is not in such databases, beware. But the presence, however, still does not guarantee anything. So you need to dig further.

Find out qualifications and experience

It’s trite here: all specialists must have specialized education and crusts. And also – sufficient experience to work with clients.

Between the nascent desire to become a psychotherapist and real success in working with clients, six to ten years of study in the relevant specialties, additional education, personal psychotherapy and, of course, more than one unsuccessful experience of helping one’s neighbor can easily fit.

The most important thing is the presence of a specialized higher education and work experience as a psychologist. Feel free to ask to see your diploma. If you have a specialist who has an education in front of you, he will not refuse. Nowadays, it is easy to make sure that a person really has an education (higher psychological, advanced training). On many services for the selection of psychologists, you can see the documents with your own eyes, on other services, the control department checks documents on education, it does not allow people without the proper level of training.

Having received a photo of a diploma, do not rush to calm down – sometimes such crusts are faked. You can check the diploma on specialized resources.

At the same time, the issue of experience has a small nuance: according to psychologist Polina Polyakova, experience, of course, gives great advantages, but specialists without experience often cost less, and their involvement in the process and attention to the patient will be higher.

Check Supervision

Psychotherapists and psychologists who are serious about their work should regularly undergo supervision and personal long-term therapy, psychotherapist Vyacheslav Moskvin and psychologist Polina Polyakova told The Secret.

It is very important for psychotherapists that their own mental state allows them to deal with other people’s problems. Like many helping professions, this one is very conducive to burnout. Therefore, its representatives themselves often need external support in order to continue to work with people and do their job well.

A personal therapist and supervisor help to solve these problems, a more experienced specialist who, in the format of psychological consultations, helps colleagues understand themselves and their practice, find their “blind spot” in working with clients, cope with stress and tension, and cut off moments when personal and the human begins to influence the professional too much.

Supervisions are something you can and have the right to inquire about. This is a way to improve skills through interaction with more experienced colleagues. A good psychologist is supervised at least once a month. Experience in personal therapy is also an unobvious but significant factor in professional qualifications. Personal study increases the likelihood that the specialist will not have a “transfer”, that is, he will not see his pain points in your story and, therefore, his “optics” will be better tuned.

Check out the reviews

If this is your first time looking for a psychotherapist, first ask your friends – a good specialist is usually passed from hand to hand. As a rule, knowing that the doctor has already helped someone real with a similar problem, it is easier for him to trust.

But even about a completely unfamiliar doctor, you can learn quite a lot – there are enough services with reviews on the Web. And in some cases, independent research turns out to be even more useful than searching for a specialist in the inner circle.

Search by recommendation…