Speaker 1: So it is my absolute pleasure to tell you that you need therapy.

Speaker 2: And even if you think you don't need therapy, you need therapy. You need therapy. You need therapy.

Speaker 1: Welcome to Almost Dr. Armas. If you are new to the channel, thank you for checking it out. And if you are already a subscriber, thanks for being back here again. In this channel, I talk about life as a psychology graduate student and bring you information about the mental health field. Earlier this week, I did a poll on my Instagram story and asked all of my followers what they wanted to see in today's video. As you can already guess, everyone voted for tips for finding a good therapist, and so that's what this video is going to be about. In finding a good therapist, it's important to know that good is subjective. For me, a good therapist is somebody who's empathic, competent, has experience, can listen actively, is non-judgmental, and I think those are things that you would be looking for, but everyone has different needs. So just keep in mind that these are my tips for how to find someone who is a right fit. It may not work for you, but I hope it does. Tip number one is be open to trying therapy with multiple people. Finding a good therapist is like finding a good partner or the right pair of shoes. It may not always be a good fit right away, and you can give it a couple of tries, a handful of sessions, but if you're not clicking with somebody, don't waste your time, don't waste your money. Therapy can be very costly. The first person you meet may not be the person that you stick with, and that's totally okay, but I think it can be really discouraging for people to finally find a therapist and have a couple of sessions and then realize that it's not what they thought it was or they're just not vibing with that person. I really, really urge you to just find someone different and don't give up on therapy. Okay, so my second tip is if credentials are important to you, which I think they should be, then do your research. There are lots of different degrees and certifications. Some people are considered psychologists, other people are counselors, and each type of degree has a different type of training, but another reason why it's important to consider credentials is because of cost. So people with a master's charge significantly less than what people with a doctoral degree can charge, and if you're looking for therapy that is low cost, you might consider someone who doesn't have a doctoral degree, and it doesn't mean that they aren't trained or don't know what to do. It just means that they had different training. It's a little bit complicated, so in the future I will probably do a video explaining all the different types of degrees in psychology. For now, if it's something that's important to you, then definitely take the time to consider what each degree involves and what you think that you need. And that leads me to the next tip, which is look them up. If you have a list that your insurance company gave you or that you found online of names of potential therapists, do your Google search of each and every person and learn where they went to school, what credentials they have, where they did their internship or postdoctoral fellowship if they're a PhD. Make sure that you know a little bit about them. You may be able to find papers that they've published before or research that they've done. One of the reasons that people wait a really long time to start therapy is because they're scared. It's nerve-wracking to go into a room and tell someone about your life and expect them to fix your problems or help you fix your problems. So knowing as much information about the person as you possibly can when you go in might ease some of your anxiety about starting therapy. And the more you can kind of control in a situation, the easier it'll be. If you walk in only knowing this person's name, it's going to be pretty scary. And if you're going to start therapy, I think you're brave and I think you're doing the right thing. But do as much as you can to make this easier for yourself. The next tip I have is ask questions, especially in the first session. Think of it as a first date. First sessions are intake. So a therapist is asking you questions, getting to know you, probably asking about your childhood or asking you what brought you into therapy. If you are considering hiring somebody or doing therapy with someone, it's okay to ask them questions. How long they've been doing this, what therapy is like with them. You should be able to ask questions about your care. Consider it a treatment. So if you were, God forbid, diagnosed with cancer and you had to get treatment, you would ask a ton of questions. How long? How much? Why? What does this do? So think about your mental health in the same way. In the first session or maybe in the first three sessions, you're getting a sense of whether this is a good fit. As I said before, it may not be a great fit, but there's only one way to find out. So ask, ask, ask questions. Okay, so last tip. Know what your goal is and know what you want to get out of therapy. If you are going to solve an immediate problem, something that's going on right now, you should probably have a sense of what that is. If you're just going to therapy to try it out, which I hope you are because that's awesome and you're just going because you think that it'll make you a better person, which it will, but whatever it is that you want to get out of therapy, try to maybe write it down or just have a sense in your head. Why am I here? Who do I want to become or what do I want to learn? And some therapists will ask you this, you know, why did, what brought you into therapy and what are you hoping to accomplish? Some therapists will set short term and long term goals with you, which I think is awesome. So before you find someone, think about that. And these are supposed to be tips for finding a good therapist. And like I said at the beginning, good is subjective. So you have to know what you want in order to find someone who is good for that. And lastly, I have a bonus tip for you guys, which is where to look. This video was about finding a good therapist. And the problem that I hear from a lot of people that I know is that they just don't know how to even find somebody, let alone find someone good. So one resource that is super common is Psychology Today, which is a website. You can search for the type of therapist you're looking for, I think you can search by area, and I believe that you can also search by insurance. So that's something to check out. Another thing that people don't know is that doctoral programs have clinics within them. So if there's a big university near you that has a psychology program, they may also have a clinic. And it is not the same as going to a school counselor. You will be seeing people like me who are a little bit further along in their school career who see patients or clients. So if there's a school near you that you know trains psychology students to be therapists in the future, you can consider going there to be treated. In some cases, they may ask the sessions to be recorded, or they may ask you to be okay with observation, things like that, because we are learning. But one of the major benefits of going to a program like that is it's cheap. And it's significantly cheaper because we're not licensed, but we are supervised by therapists who are licensed. So you're getting good care and you can rest assured that whoever is seeing you is meeting at least weekly with another psychologist and going over the case. So I share that with you because I know it's really hard to find someone, and it's also really hard to find someone who is affordable. So if it's an option for you, definitely consider it. Do your research. Make the phone calls. Be proactive in finding somebody. A few other options for finding therapists are if you are a college student, you can go to a counselor at your college. Sometimes those are meant to be a little bit more short term. So they may have a certain number of sessions, and then if you still need help after those sessions, they will refer you out to somebody a little bit more permanent. Either way, it's therapy, and either way, it's a step in the right direction. So if that's available to you, definitely take advantage of it. And lastly, your insurance company. So if you are lucky enough to have insurance, health insurance, you can call your insurance company and tell them that you're looking for a therapist or psychologist. If you're looking for any type of mental health professional or any type of doctor for that matter, you can call your insurance company and they can give you a list of providers who take your insurance. This can be very, very, very valuable because if you're paying for insurance, you would like to see someone who accepts your insurance. However, one drawback is sometimes the list that they give you are very outdated. And so you may get a list of people, therapists, who maybe they used to take that insurance but they're not enrolled in it anymore. Or they do take that insurance but they're not taking new patients. It can be very frustrating to call number after number after number and not be able to nail down an appointment. And I get that. But at the same time, making those phone calls is being proactive about your mental health. And even if five people on the list don't respond and you can't get an appointment, maybe the sixth person does respond and that could end up being your therapist. It can also be really overwhelming to find a therapist. So if you have a friend or a loved one who can help you, kind of filter through the list or make phone calls with you or send emails with you, it can also be really helpful. It's scary, like I said earlier, to find somebody and to get help, especially if you know that you've needed help for a long time. So if you can, I guess this is a second bonus tip, if you can find someone to help you through the process, definitely reach out. And I'm sure that if you have someone who cares about you, they will not mind helping you in finding a therapist. So that's it for this. I hope that these tips were helpful. I hope that you all go to therapy. And I hope that if you have more questions about finding a therapist, that you will reach out to me because I would love to help you if I can. And thank you so much for checking out this video. If you aren't a subscriber, but you like this video, please do subscribe, comment, like. If this video might help somebody that you know who needs a therapist or has been looking for a while, please, please, please share this with them. I'm Almost Dr. Armas. My goal is to inform you, to inspire you, to hopefully spark an interest in you and also entertain you. I really appreciate your time and I hope you'll check back in next time.