Whether you get a recommendation for a therapist from your primary care doctor, a friend, or your insurance company, finding out about his or her background and training can help you feel comfortable with your choice. Here are some questions to ask before settling on a therapist:
- What’s your training (i.e., what certification or degrees do you hold)?
- How long have you worked in this field?
- What kinds of treatment or therapy do you think might help me?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches, including medication?
- How does the treatment work?
- What are the chances that treatment will work?
- How soon should I start feeling better?
- How will we assess my progress?
- What should I do if I don’t feel better?
- How much will treatment cost?
It’s hard for a therapist to give precise answers to some of these questions, because no single therapist or type of treatment is best for everyone. But there are some general responses you should be looking for. The therapist should have formal training and certification, or be on the way to getting it. There’s a tendency for mental health professionals to offer the particular type of psychotherapy that they do best. It’s good if the person can describe the merits and drawbacks of different types of treatment, including ones they don’t do.
The therapist should also let you know how he or she will monitor your progress. If you don’t feel there’s been improvement after several months, consider getting a second opinion.
Have you found a therapist with whom you are happy? How did you do it?
Understanding Depression, a report from Harvard Medical School, includes information about medications, therapy, and other treatments that can help people overcome depression and boost the likelihood of a full remission. Reading it and sharing it with loved ones might help improve your life—or the life of someone close to you. And, because depression remains a leading cause of suicide, the information might even be lifesaving.
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Are you Living With Depression? Connect with others with similar health concerns and issues. Click here to join the group.
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Comments: 9
In Canada my experience is that it is not well tolerated if you go shopping for the right doctor or therapist, you tend to get a label of being difficult etc . And there are too few to go arround in most places as well .
Those were the big problems with even trying to find a therapist for our son's depression. We still haven't gotten through the whole maze of trying to find treatment for the uninsured yet.
I have been lucky and have found good ones, but they always end up closing their practice. I guess that it sucks to be in Mental Health in San Luis County, Ca. The last one I had left to work with the prison, less paperwork and didn't have to deal with insurance.
There are so few here to begin with that you have little choice in the matter in the first place. I think that I have a list of five to choose from that my insurance will cover without a hassle and one of those is up on sexual harrasment charges and a couple only treat teens or children!
I believe Drs fly in and spend a few days a month seeing patients at the hospital.
As this area 'boasts' a fairly high suicide rate, I doubt I'd be high on any priority list
for new patient additions to their full rosters.
I was put on Citalapram and seem to be holding my own, sort of, at about 60mg/day, which isn't, I'm told, a terribly strong dose....so that's a good thing.
But although I'm not being a recluse who cries all the time anymore, the depression
is still evident in other ways. I have absolutely no energy, can't seem to make up
my mind about anything and if I get any fatter, I won't fit in a chair!
I also have several forms of arthritis and am on fairly heavy doses of opiates for the pain, plus the usual meds for high blood pressure and bone density.
I don't mean to bore you with all this....only to give you a slice of life in someone who doesn't have access to any choice of therapeutic assistance.
So whatever I do to get out of this, I must do myself. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance,
K