Dr. Jameca CooperForensic Psychology Consultant, Emergence Psychological Services · Board Certified Counseling Psychologist and Forensic Psychology Consultant

How to Find a Good Therapist

5 Nov 2021 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

3:11

In this concise instructional video, Dr. Jameca Cooper explains two practical strategies for locating a trustworthy therapist. First, she advises viewers to conduct thorough research: search for local providers using condition‑specific keywords (e.g., "depression," "dysthymia"), review their social‑media presence for clues about therapeutic orientation (such as feminist therapy), and examine their academic background, dissertations, publications, and research focus to gauge specialization. Second, she recommends moving beyond a phone consultation and actually scheduling an initial therapy session with a prospective clinician. During that session, the client should assess how comfortable they feel, whether they feel seen, heard, and respected, and whether they can trust the therapist to accompany them on their mental‑health journey. Dr. Cooper emphasizes that in‑person interaction is the most reliable way to determine therapeutic fit, concluding with encouragement to apply these tips.

Chapters

Hi, this is Dr. Jameca Cooper Cooper. Make sure you subscribe to this channel, like, right now. Today we are talking about how can you find a therapist. I know I hear from a lot of people, like, are you taking new patients? Give me some referrals. Point me in the right direction of someone I can talk to, someone that I can trust. Well, it's not always an easy task, but today I'm going to talk to you about two really big tips and how to do that. My first tip is, and it may be self-explanatory, but do your research. So what does that mean? So look for providers in your area that would accept patients given your unique needs. So let's say you are suffering from depression. You might want to do a search on providers in your area and put in keywords like depression or major depressive disorder or sadness or dysthymia or keywords like that that may be tied to your provider popping up on different sites, um, on the internet, right? So other things you can do is look for social media sites. Look at providers in your area and their social media sites. If they have an Instagram page, You can usually look at their Instagram page for clues on what they specialize in. So in other words, if they're really, really into feminist therapy, feminist psychology, feminist counseling, you'll probably see some evidence of that on their Instagram page. Other things you could look for would be their background and their training. Where did they go to school? What was their dissertation on? What has their work been on? What have they done research on? What have they written articles on? All of these things should give you clues on what that provider specializes in, what they have knowledge in, what they're good at. So again, my first tip is do your own research. My second tip is something you're not going to expect, but schedule a session with a person that you would even consider. I'm saying to not try to schedule a consultation because most of the people I know in 2021 don't have time to do consultations anymore. 10 years ago, all providers were doing consultations, but that's not a common thing now. So the easiest way to get to meet a provider is to schedule a session. So when you're in the room with that person that you are considering for therapy, you would see how this feels. Do I like this person? Does this feel comfortable? Do I feel seen and heard? Do I feel respected? Do I like this person? Is this someone I could trust to walk with me through this journey? And if those things are yes, then this might be someone that you could stick with. But you really only know that answer when you meet them in person. Everyone can be nice and professional on the phone, but sitting in the room with them is a totally different story. So these are my 2 tips on how to find a good therapist. Hopefully you use these. Hopefully they work for you. This is Dr. Jameca Cooper. Thank you.