Psychotherapy is a great treatment option for virtually any mental disorder or mental health concern, as well as life and relationship issues. Decades’ worth of research have proven its effectiveness, at least when you’re working with an experienced therapist who knows their stuff and uses empirically-backed techniques.
But what happens when you need to change therapists? We all need to change therapists from time to time, so how do you start over with a new therapist? Where do you begin? What do you do? And what do you look for in your new therapist?
Changing therapists can be a daunting, anxiety-inducing process. There is no “right” time to change therapists. You do it when you feel like you’re treading water with your current therapist, or you’re just not seeing the progress you’d like in therapy. With that in mind, here are 7 tips for changing therapists I recommend.
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My Tip:
Even if you tell your T, and ask for a referral, your T may not want to let you go.
So, expect to get NO referral or a long, unhelpful listing vs. a personal recommendation.
Expect that the T will offer to try something new or read a book, so as to better help you with the issue. The T who thinks “I can fix anyone with anything” can be hard to get away from.
You have to TRUST your instinct that you need something different, even if you like the current T. This can be very hard to do if you’ve always doubted yourself, or misjudged people.
Be prepared to talk to a LOT of frogs before you find the right one.
While these tips are good, and of course it is your decision and you are not obligated to give your reasons, consider, too, that any good therapist will want to discuss your desire to quit/change as a treatment issue. Perhaps a person’s desire to cut and run has more to do with getting to the (painful) heart of the matter or something about the therapist which touches a nerve in the nature of (possibly healthy and helpful) transference.
And that, AF,would be their choice.
It would be nice to leave a therapist without getting that babble about avoidance, transference, blah blah blah.
Hi. I am confused. I asked for a copy f my records before leaving therapy and was told that “per policy and per CT state law, I am not allowed to have my records directly. They can only be forwarded to another clinician.” Is this true? I find this hard to believe in this day and age.
Thanks for the article and any info. you have on this issue would be greatly appreciated.
I had no problem leaving a few therapists after one or two sessions. One male psychiatrist asked me (I was 22) if I was breast or bottle fed on the first history intake interview and I thought he was coming onto me.
Another told me that my bulimia did not compare to other women who had kids with spina bifida, leukaemia etc.
Another (work place therapist) actually told my employer who told my mother who worked at the same place, all my deepest secrets. I only found out when my mother told me, the therapist did not discuss it with me. I was 24 and so distressed about it.
Another threw a hissy fit when I asked her how many kids she had (I was pregnant at the time) and the last one terminated me, lucky I already thought she was a complete nutter. I later learned she had a nervous breakdown and moved onto another career.
No wonder I thought my current therapist was ok. She seemed normal compared to the rest of them.
Honestly, if you don’t like your therapist, you have the right to simply never come back and find another one. They won’t stalk you and hunt you down. Unless you are attached, especially in a negative way, which is not unlike the Stockholm Syndrome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
Then it is far more difficult.
Sonia
Therapy Unplugged
To know how and when to change therapists, you need to be emotionally stable enough not to need a therapist.
LOL @ David. Never was a truer word spoken.
These are some good tips, both in the article and the comments. Therapists are professionals, but they’re also people with their own problems. But, as the client, their problems are not your problems.
@Sonia, you’ve had some interesting therapists. Wow.
Hi Pam,
My best friend had a therapist who was murdered by a client, after he moved way up north of Australia. I used to go with her occasionally when she saw him as we kind of had a very intense friendship. He was a most gentle, kind man who helped us both.
Sonia
@harvest, you have the right to get your records, unless the therapist can substantiate that not doing so would be harmful to you. Here is a link to the CT law regarding this: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2006/rpt/2006-R-0599.htm
Submit the request in writing, and if you have another provider who could receive them in case your therapist is unwilling to provide you with your information, include that contact info and cc the new therapist. If the therapist is still unwilling to give your records to you or a representative, consider following up with advocacy services: http://library.uchc.edu/departm/hnet/advocacy.html
AF’s admonishment about leaving to escape the painful is the weapon used by many a therapist to control many a client.
The problem with this type of “interpretation” is it intrinsically invalidates and diminishes to the client. Simply the dynamic of the therapist as the “correct” interpreter of events defeats client empowerment.
The client’s perceptions of the here and now should be acknowledged and respected. Therapists too often have their noses so deep in their theory books that they abandon common sense.
I have been in therapy for over 2 years. My T has helped me through some difficult times and has been very supportive. We are a good fit. But i have developed feeling s for my T for the past year. We have discussed this, but I still have them and I am afraid I am becoming too dependent on him thus the reason for wanting to move on.
If your therapist doesn’t do it for you in the first few sessions, then leave.
There are plenty of good ones out there.
Don’t avoid the hard stuff though by using that as an excuse.
I am not religious and was referred to a therapist by my doctor. I told her when I met her that I didn’t want god to be part of my therapy. She said she might bring it up from time to time and I said OK because my doctor said she knew her. Big mistake. I later found out my doctor only met her once. Then when I was in crisis when I thought an abusive man was going to hurt me she ended the session by asking me to think about god. I wonder the ethics of a therapist who would take a dark hour to manipulate me like that. I told her that she should not take non-religious clients. She says she likes the challenge. If she wants to be a missionary great. But leave me out of it. I blame myself because I know Jesus freaks (no offense) can’t help it and I should have known better than to see her. But I think she was unprofessional and manipulative to take someone in need to further her own aims instead of saying flat out, I can NOT not be religious so we wouldn’t be a good fit. Now I’ve spent it of time and don’t know where to go to start new.