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Notes -
I tell patients sometimes that finding a therapist is not like a PCP - you might like your PCP more or less but they all fundamentally do more or less the same thing. It's like buying a car. Some are better some are worse and they might be missing bells and whistles...but it is all the same shit.
A therapist is more like offering a specific movie.
If you are looking for a Rom Com then The Godfather isn't going to be what you need.
Find the therapist that offers the right movie for you.
Does that feel right to you?
I don't think I need a therapist but I am curious - how would one find the right movie? I mean, actual movies have re views, trailers, etc. What do the therapists have? I never even seen an ad for a therapist ever - are they even allowed?
I mean, I can't even tell you how to get the right doctor. Shit is hard as fuck.
Lots of people use word of mouth within an IRL social network or via something like Facebook. You can find lists in your area or otherwise online (and with Telehealth...world is your oyster). Many people are already seeing an MD for med management and they have referral networks. More so than general medicine getting something that matches your insurance is harder since so many do cash, which in that case you gotta match the financial resources.
On top of those considerations you have an element of "if this one doesn't work for you, try someone else."
Frustratingly many people stop after the first one or continue with the first one even if it's not a good match.
Sigh, tell me about it. Next to impossible, unfortunately I have some experience. Same goes for most of professionals, unfortunately, but at least some have reviews and portfolios (not a guarantee but at least something...) Good thing at least I don't need that one, it would frustrate me to no end.
I can tell you that on the healthcare end of things the issue is that the people who want to be serious about "shopping" over focus on customer service and end up with awful care as a result.
In many other types of engagements customer service is a large part of the service so I imagine it is a bit easier.
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Really good comment! If I'm understanding you correctly, which is to say that most therapists will in their profiles/web pages/whatever advertise their preferred specialties and modalities and the like, then I think it does, yeah. To develop this thought a little further, while some modalities have become mainstream and common, there's still plenty of specific modalities for specific problems, like DBT specialists for BPD, CSTs for sexual specific issues, et cetera, and in that sense I'd absolutely agree that it's good idea to do one's homework and pick the right "genre" of movie accordingly. I was glossing most of that over in thinking, okay, so there are relationship issues but OP is doing individual therapy, and asking about counselors specifically... yeah, if they're seeing a LMHC, LPC, or whatever their State wants to call it, then OP should at least be in the right neighborhood. Not 100% guarantee, of course, but generally speaking looking at a good flavor of individual therapist. In making my comments about a PCP, I was drawing on my own experiences with a PCP in the past. I had a bad one that simply brushed off a serious and chronic medical problem that I had and when I got fed up and went directly to a surgeon, said surgeon took one look and was like, "yeah, you need surgery," and promptly scheduled me. My current PCP (when I actually see her) tends to actually listen to my presenting problem and offer me solutions if she has them or referrals if she doesn't, and I'm grateful for that. My wife has had similar experiences, so for both of us even getting more than blown off has been a non-trivial problem that we've had to overcome, hence my thinking that finding a good fit requires work even at the PCP level, and isn't something that can be expected right out of the gate. I think that part remains true, and the whole genre twist is an important one, though now my brain is going, "well, ackshully, all these licensed folks have to do so many hours of continuing education each year, some of which is different modalities, so maybe it's more like go to the right multiplex," aaaaand I'm gonna kill the analogy there before it goes further into the weeds.
Hmmmm what I'm really trying to find a way to emphasize is that the personality and the style they have to offer is part of the modality in therapy in a way that doesn't apply for other interventions. Yes the type of therapy matters but some people are never going to respond well to a more "ooey gooey feelings" type, or (frustratingly!) think they'd never respond well to that but would do great.
I think it's more common in the MD psychiatrist realm but you do see plenty of men who speak the male language and are heavy on tough love while still doing traditional therapy, which naively I imagine would work great for most of the Motte complainer types who mostly imagine a SJ adjacent "feelings" therapist.
Okay, gotcha. I still think your analogy holds merit, and that as much as good therapists can project an affect that I see as inherently Therapeutic (think Dr. Wong if you're a Rick and Morty) fan, it's also true that there's still some bleed-through that happens, personality-wise. So general agree, just was thinking along different lines.
Also, I gotta say that given my wife's firsthand experience in grad school the SJ stuff can be... whoo, boy! I mean, most of her texts were what you'd expect, but she also had texts like Decolonizing Methodologies and Privilege, Power, and Difference so, yeah. But getting into that would be thread derailing, so I'll just say that I think that there was enough dissonance there that my impression is that she mostly was able to doublethink here way through it.
In my interaction with therapists I think many of them aren't as broken by social justice as you might expect from the training and reading material. Fundamentally the goal is to help people, and the reality of the darkness you see helping with mental illness sands off some of the naive edges I think.
So great at playing the language games though yikes.
Yeah, that's certainly been true for my wife. After a few years of wanting the hard luck cases and the downtrodden, she's learning that working harder than her clients is a bad idea and that too much of that sort of thing is burning her out. That said, it was certainly an experience when she wanted to talk about Systemic Racism with me, blissfully unaware that I'd been around the internet more than long enough to have experienced many HBD debates and that the argument she was making was essentially straight from the Dread Jim with the serial numbers filed off. GUH.
Language games, of course, lead inevitably to The Rectification Of The Names. Alas.
I would say you could fix her, but sounds like she doesn't need fixing.
I wonder how much seethe it would cause on /r/CoupleMemes if one posted a video of a young attractive white couple cuddling while a male AI voice reads (naturally, with subtitles that proceed one word at a time):
After a few years of wanting the hard luck cases and the downtrodden, she's learning that working harder than her clients is a bad idea and that too much of that sort of thing is burning her out. That said, it was certainly an experience when she wanted to talk about Systemic Racism with me, blissfully unaware that I'd been around the internet more than long enough to have experienced many HBD debates and that the argument she was making was essentially straight from the Dread Jim with the serial numbers filed off đź’•The video has to have the "with a car you can go anywhere you want" guy as the main character.
Is there a video, TV show, or movie that wouldn’t automatically be better with the main male lead Replaced by racially aware dapper gas station guy?
Somewhere, Timothy Olyphant and Josh Duhamel just broke out in a cold sweat and they don’t know why.
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