Dear Friend and Reader:
For a few years I’ve been wanting to write an article about how to pick a therapist. I know that there are those for whom opening up a real discussion about their lives is burning in their soul. Others know they’ve been dealing with the same problems over and over for years. You may see the same patterns repeating in your relationships, your career, your family life or other aspects of existence, and you decide that it’s time for that to change.
Helping people get into therapy has been one of the themes of my astrological practice. I believe in therapy and I think that in American society, so obsessed with denial and immaturity, it’s the one thing that nearly everyone needs, if they want to grow up and be not just functional adults, but also people who live fully.
Yet till now I haven’t felt comfortable writing the article. So in the interest of good therapy, I’ll start with my hesitancy.
First issue is that I’ve heard a lot of stories of unhelpful or even hurtful experiences. I’ve had a few myself. I’m aware that there’s a lack of trust looming around the whole issue of therapy. There is also a belief that it’s superficial.
Next issue is that when most people are choosing a therapist, they are in some kind of crisis, and that’s not necessarily the best time to be making such a critical decision.
Yet it’s the time that it typically happens.
Another issue is that there exist a diversity of misunderstandings about what therapy is and how it works. For many people there is the perception that it’s supposed to be a magic or at least deeply mysterious solution. Images of the patient reclined on the couch in Dr. Freud’s office come to mind; he and he alone understands the workings of their unconscious — and the old man had a lot of problems (as do many contemporary therapists, who according to Alice Miller tend to come from abusive backgrounds).