How To Find A Psychologist To Attend Therapy: 8 Tips

There are those who, knowing that they need to attend psychotherapy, do not dare to embark on it simply because it is difficult for them. Find a psychologist that suits your needs

However, the truth is that although some people may find this process intimidating, it is not as complicated as one might think, even in countries where these types of services are not very well regulated. Finding a mental health professional is, among other things, thanks to the Internet, something that is increasingly easier and more accessible to all types of audiences.

In the following lines we will see several tips on how to find a psychologist who will attend to our case in a personalized way, taking into account your knowledge and our main specific needs

How do I find a psychologist to care for me? 8 steps

Finding the most appropriate psychotherapy professional for your case may seem complicated at first, but in reality it is not so much; Keep in mind that psychologists are already used to people who have never had therapy before coming to their consultation on the first day with many doubts, and they advise. Additionally, if they notice that what you need is not part of what they are prepared to treat, they can refer you to other professionals they know and who do deal with cases like yours.

Follow these guidelines to find a psychologist or a team of psychologists at a psychology center that fits what you are looking for.

1. Determine the severity and nature of your problem

In practice, even if a psychologist sees that he cannot work with a case like the one you present, he will advise you in the best possible way so that you can be treated by someone who is specialized in that type of problem. However, If you take a little time to think about what’s happening to you, you’ll have a better chance of getting it right the first time (taking into account that it is very likely that you do not have an objective and realistic view of what is really happening, and that it is normal for even you to make mistakes in this regard).

So, ask yourself questions. The first is what kind of problem you have: is it something that mainly has to do with your social relationships, or does it affect only you in a relatively isolated way? Does it have to do with your feelings, with your perception of things, or with both? Is it something automatic, or something that has to do with the way you make decisions?

The second question is to what extent it is serious, what is the intensity of your discomfort or those who come into contact with you.

Depending on these issues, you will later have to look for psychologists with one or another specialization, and with more or less demanding experience requirements taking into account your availability and your ability to book therapy sessions with them.

2. Set your spending limit

You have to be realistic and think long term, taking into account that you will need several hours of work from the psychologist. Therefore, take into account all the expenses that this reasonable number of hours will entail, including seemingly minor aspects such as transportation costs and set a maximum amount of money to dedicate to this.

By the way, you may be interested in the cheaper option of online therapy, which as we will see is also an alternative to take into account.

3. Decide if you are looking for in-person, online or mixed therapy

Many psychologists offer the possibility of seeing their patients over the Internet, by video call or similar. Besides, It is a format that allows you to cut costs and also has other obvious advantages such as saving travel time or being able to have services even if we have illnesses that reduce mobility.

Therefore, depending on your needs, decide if you are looking for only one of the two ways to attend therapy, both are good for you, depending on the circumstances. This step to find a psychologist also has to do with the one we will see below.

4. Make a first selection of psychologists

If you are interested in in-person therapy, you can search specifically mental health professionals who work in your neighborhood or city, either in your own office or psychotherapy office, or at home. To do this, a very useful tool to find these professionals are directories of psychologists, such as this one, which works to search for psychologists in Spain. If you live in another country, here are other directories: one for Mexico, and another for Colombia. You can also search on Google, although in this case it may be a little more difficult to compare.

At first, it is good that you look at two fundamental criteria: price and location (the latter especially if you are not interested in online therapy). Once this first filtering is done, you can go on to see the type of specializations you are looking for in a psychotherapy professional, the ages of the patients they serve, their languages, etc.

5. Make sure they have the official qualifications to practice

Check that the people you have selected in the first sweep have their membership numbers in the Official College of Psychologists in their country, which will guarantee that they have completed the training path that qualifies them to practice psychological intervention in clinical or health settings.

6. Check their specialties

Don’t just look at what the person says they specialize in: check that they have the postgraduate degrees that they have received. bases of experience and theoretical foundations in these clinical areas Keep in mind that courses and workshops can be for a single weekend, while many more hours are required to receive the Expert title, and to obtain a Master’s degree you have to invest at least a year in it.

On the other hand, you can also look at whether the professional has completed a general program, or one that is more specialized and focused on what you are looking for.

7. Look at their online presence

Psychologists who are active and who dedicate body and soul to this profession are usually in contact with psychology websites, directories, general media… That is, it is an indicator of reliability that you perceive that the professional in question dedicates time to leave your office and make yourself known and collaborate with other organizations and disseminate your profession.

There are even professionals who participate in radio or television programs. That is positive to the extent that it can give us a certain notion of whether we are facing a reference in its field, with a consolidated network of contacts that allows them to transcend the routine of their consultation and reach a broader audience. For example, psychologists and psychotherapy centers who are great references in different fields collaborate on the Psychology and Mind blog.

8. Pick a few professionals and ask

In this last phase of the search, you can find out more about the services offered. If you have doubts, which is likely, ask, but choose carefully what you are looking for answers to and formulate your doubts to the point; reading large texts in which someone who is not a client describes her problems and seeks answers to everything is not to anyone’s taste and, in any case, your problems can only be explored in depth in the evaluation phase in the first sessions.

So, from this last step, you should be able to choose.