10 tips for choosing a good psychologist

Some keys to identify a psychologist that suits your needs.

Choosing the psychologist who is going to offer you sessions may seem a simple task at a time when the Internet allows us to quickly locate the nearest consultation.

If we live in a small town, we may only have to find out which mental health professionals practice in our locality, and if we are in a large urban center we will still have many tools to find out about all the nearby clinics. However, things get more complicated when we introduce the variable "quality" into the equation.

Choosing a good psychologist is not always a simple task, as there are many factors to take into account, and there is a lot to consider. there are many factors to take into account and some of them depend on the specific type of service we are looking for.

• Recommended article: "The 11 best Psychology and Psychotherapy clinics in Spain".

Tips for choosing a good psychologist

Of course, each case deserves to be studied and it is impossible to give specific keys to select the best of all professionals without knowing the characteristics of the patient and the psychologists available in the area. However, you can follow some general guidelines that will help you choose a good psychologist.

Here are ten of these keys.

1. Make sure he/she is a psychologist

The first point in choosing a good psychologist is... make sure that he or she is a psychologist.. It seems like a very obvious point, but it is worth bearing in mind. In the labor market there are many labels and names that make us think that whoever uses them to define themselves is a psychologist. However, this is not true: today it is possible to present oneself as a "psychotherapist" or "therapist" without having completed a university degree in psychology. Cases of labor intrusion have been reported.

Someone who claims to be a psychotherapist does not necessarily have to be a psychologist, although a psychologist can be a psychotherapist. To be sure that the person who offers you the sessions has university training in psychology, you can check if he/she has an official university degree and registration number.

2. Check that he/she has a specialization in what you are looking for.

There are many types of psychologists, and not all of them have to be suitable for what you are looking for.. To begin with, you should find out if the professional you are looking for is specifically trained in clinical psychology, as there are also psychologists whose specialization is focused on marketing, laboratory research or human resources. Keep in mind that, depending on the country you live in, to become a clinical psychologist, a bachelor's degree may be sufficient or you may have to take at least a post-graduate master's degree in addition.

Once you have made sure that you are choosing between people qualified in clinical or health psychology, find out which of these specialize in the problems you want to treat..

3. Find out about the type of psychotherapeutic approach they offer.

A psychologist may offer psychotherapeutic approaches that at the moment do not have solid evidence about their efficacy, for example past life therapy and other alternative therapies. This is not a reason to discard their services, but it is worth bearing in mind that certain practices are not supported by science..

Alternative therapies can be more or less useful depending on each case, since the usefulness or not is determined by the patient through his or her own subjectivity, but a good psychologist will not pass off one of these practices as ways of intervening with empirically proven efficacy.

Before choosing a psychologist, you should bear in mind that the form of psychological treatment that has the most scientific support is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, although there are treatments that have been proven to be effective empirically.although there are treatments that have been shown to be effective in addressing specific disorders. That is why the best thing to do is to ask for information about the degree of scientifically proven efficacy of the treatments offered and, from that point, decide in one direction or another.

4. Make sure that confidentiality is guaranteed

It never hurts to remember that during the sessions, the confidentiality of everything you say or do must be guaranteed.. As a general rule, your personal data cannot be disseminated by any professional psychologist or by any company formed by psychologists. If this confidentiality is violated in any way, that fact may be grounds for complaint.

5. You must sign an informed consent document

Before beginning therapy, you should be given a dossier with information about the services available and, specifically, the type of therapy for which you are opting.. Attached to this type of dossier should be the informed consent document, in which you sign that you are aware of what will be done during the sessions.

6. Do you offer evaluation and diagnosis?

At the beginning of the visits, a psychologist should explore the patient's problem through an evaluation stage that should not go beyond the first 4 or 5 sessions.. This will allow him/her to establish a diagnosis about your problems, and this diagnosis should be explained to you in plain words, so that you understand it.

If you notice that the person giving you therapy indefinitely lengthens the evaluation stage, mixes this phase with the treatment phase, or you notice that his or her explanation of the diagnosis is deliberately confusing and esoteric, consider interrupting the sessions.

7. Is their intervention proposal clear?

Choosing a good psychologist also means to opt for a professional who knows how to communicate well with his patients and who does not reserve information about his plan to intervene through the therapy.. That is why he should be able to clearly explain to you the number of sessions planned and what will happen during those sessions.

Likewise, he must also be able to provide clear answers to all the doubts about the therapy that you may have.

8. The psychologist should not judge you

Psychology professionals should never judge their patients, as their role is to offer solutions and direct efforts towards clear goals. their role is oriented towards offering solutions and directing efforts towards clear objectives.. They are not in charge of being moral guardians. It is imperative that a psychologist knows how to promote a good rapport, that is to say, an atmosphere of trust that allows you to express yourself without any strings attached.

This is partly the reason why patients are able to behave sincerely during the sessions.

9. How does the therapeutic relationship unfold?

Clinical psychologists work to help find solutions, not to befriend their patients or become romantically involved with them.. Entering into personal relationships with patients is against the code of ethics of psychologists.

If you notice that the person offering you treatment behaves like a friend or lets you know that he or she is looking for continuity in your relationship during the hours when he or she is not treating you as a professional, you should leave therapy immediately.

10. Do you find it helpful to go to their office?

Ultimately, you should be the one to evaluate the usefulness of going to the psychologist.. Thus, psychologists cannot pressure you to continue with treatments, nor should they tell you that you do not realize how helpful your services are being.

The progress you may be making is useless if in the final stages of therapy you are not the one who notices it.

To sum up...

With these keys in mind, you should now be able to make a well-informed decision when choosing a good psychologist. Keep in mind, however, that the list you have just read could be endless and that there are infinite questions to consider when choosing one professional or another, so it is worthwhile for you to be the judge of what you are looking for and to what extent they can offer it to you.

If you have any doubts about the role of the psychologist and the therapist-patient relationship, just leave your question in the comments (below). leave your question in the comments (below the post) and we will be happy to answer you.