Right, the "good" therapists are insanely expensive and insurance companies don't like to cover it because it's often deemed non-essential, or of dubious benefit. I can't say I disagree with the insurance companies on this one issue.
The challenging thing with finding a "good" therapist in my view is: all of these people offer a free session to see if you get along, but at the same time it's impossible to know if you're going to see results in just one session.
You can always do some research, have a specific problem (or problems) in mind that you want to solve, make sure you're talking to a licensed therapist (in the US they call them LCSWs, I don't know how it works elsewhere but I made sure I was talking to one of those), then do that free intro session. After the session, ask yourself if they listened to your concerns, see if they seem like an empathetic and nice person, see if they give you some interesting insights you didn't think about before, recall if they were able to challenge your thought process effectively, etc.
The therapist I was talking to did do all of those things and I felt comfortable, and it's why I stuck with the same therapist for 6 months. If I didn't feel comfortable in any way I would have fired him long before the 6 months were up. But was there a real benefit at the end of 6 months? No.
That said, I'm not sure how else I can accurately judge a new therapist if I ever do this kind of thing again, so I'll just end up with the same problem and most likely waste another 6 months. The ROI just doesn't seem to be there.
Right, the "good" therapists are insanely expensive and insurance companies don't like to cover it because it's often deemed non-essential, or of dubious benefit. I can't say I disagree with the insurance companies on this one issue.
The challenging thing with finding a "good" therapist in my view is: all of these people offer a free session to see if you get along, but at the same time it's impossible to know if you're going to see results in just one session.
You can always do some research, have a specific problem (or problems) in mind that you want to solve, make sure you're talking to a licensed therapist (in the US they call them LCSWs, I don't know how it works elsewhere but I made sure I was talking to one of those), then do that free intro session. After the session, ask yourself if they listened to your concerns, see if they seem like an empathetic and nice person, see if they give you some interesting insights you didn't think about before, recall if they were able to challenge your thought process effectively, etc.
The therapist I was talking to did do all of those things and I felt comfortable, and it's why I stuck with the same therapist for 6 months. If I didn't feel comfortable in any way I would have fired him long before the 6 months were up. But was there a real benefit at the end of 6 months? No.
That said, I'm not sure how else I can accurately judge a new therapist if I ever do this kind of thing again, so I'll just end up with the same problem and most likely waste another 6 months. The ROI just doesn't seem to be there.