On the therapist
What, specifically, makes a competent therapist?
Here I argue that confrontational compassion, self-understanding, and skill are key.
Three therapists walked into a bar
It’s true that not all therapists were created equal. Okay, we’re equal in terms of our human rights, but not in terms of our ability to help clients. Very simply, some therapists are better than others. So what makes a therapist good at their job?
It starts with:
Compassion,
which means caring for clients, and sometimes being confrontational.
A good therapist should be compassionate and kind. They should be warm, interested, and on your side. Everyone has a story, and the role of a good therapist is to listen to and perhaps help you make sense of your own story, whatever that is. But being kind is not enough. Good therapists should also be willing to confrontational. A simple example can demonstrate this.
Imagine that a parent is really kind to their young child. Each night, the child eats chocolate and goes to bed without brushing their teeth. Out of kindness - combined with a worry about confrontation - our parent let’s the child carry on this pattern. In this story, the parent is being naïve, not kind or compassionate, since the child risks rotting their teeth.
Sometimes to be compassionate is to challenge people, offering them new ways of understanding their behaviour and thinking about themselves. But this is a delicate thing. It can backfire: people can get defensive or therapists can get it wrong. Or both. So good therapists will challenge their clients only when they have first connected to the client in a meaningful way. To be challenged, the client needs to know that the therapists cares about them. And that comes back to compassion. Good therapists will genuinely care about their clients. It is this caring and compassionate stance that allows therapists to sometimes challenge their clients perspectives.
Which leads us onto:
Self-understanding,
which means practicing what I preach.
This is not something that can be learned from a textbook. It must come from lived experience. No amount of training, workplace experience, or university degrees can give self-understanding. Instead, it comes from a therapist struggling with their own anxiety or depression or X, and then actively learning ways to manage this in a positive way. I believe good therapists practice what they preach. Good therapists understand mental health because they attempt to understand their own mental health in a serious and realistic way, their own personal strengths and limitations acknowledged and accepted.
By being in a calm, ordered, and self-compassionate mental place, good therapists have spent time understanding themselves, and it’s from this place that allows them to reach out and assist others. All this understanding sounds great, but therapists of course have their own struggles and cannot expect to be perfect people. I’m certainly not perfect! Of course I aim for self-understanding, but I live a complex and sometimes messy life like everyone else. The TV worthwhile shows, Shrinking and Stutz, demonstrates this principle well. Still, I believe the aim should always be self-management first, help others second.
And finally, consider:
Therapeutic skill,
which means being able to actually help with anxiety, depression, or another issue.
A good therapist will be compassionate. And they will have had their own struggles with mental health, learning effective ways to manage this. But they also need skill or competence to actually assist other people. If you go to a therapist, you want to feel like you’re benefiting in some way. The extent to which you benefit is partially determined by the skill of the therapist. Before you visit a therapist, pay attention to their personal history, work experience, professional qualifications, and memberships. To assess my skill, access my CV, or visit the About Me page.
Usually, however, the best way to discover this is to meet with, suss out, and maybe try a few sessions with the therapist, assuming you get along after the initial meeting. My suggestion is that you can know your therapists skill quickly. If you attend two sessions and leave without having felt some benefit, I suggest you might try another more effective therapist.
