How to find an effective life coach, counsellor or psychotherapist

Today I am going to tell you how you can identify a therapist that can really help you.   No matter what you want out of life, I am going to share with you the formula for finding the right person to help you achieve it.

Most people seek counselling because they feel stuck in some situation or another and can’t find a way out.  It’s as if you can’t see the wood for the trees.  In this situation it really helps to have someone objective, who understands the problem and can teach you how to deal with it effectively. 

I have seen many clients who have previously undertaken coaching or therapy but felt their therapist did not empower them to fully tackle the issues they were facing.  While it was good to talk to someone, they tell me the therapist asked a lot of questions about their childhood, didn’t say much or provided them with little or no active strategies for directly tackling issues in their current life.

Scientific research demonstrates that a good therapeutic relationship contributes significantly to your chances of achieving your desired outcome. So choosing the right person, with the right skills for you, can save you a lot of time, money and frustration.

To help you achieve the best possible chance of success, I have outlined below the key points to consider when choosing a therapist who will help you achieve what you want effectively.

Questions to consider when choosing a therapist. 

• Do they explain clearly how they work on their website?  Does it make sense to you?
• Do they have a good level of training (minimum 3-5 years), qualifications and experience (minimum 5 years)? 
• Are they open to you telephoning or emailing and asking questions before making an appointment?
• Does the therapist have experience in working with the issues you want to deal with? 
• Ask them what made them choose their profession.  Are you happy with their answer?
• Have they testimonials from clients which will tell you how others have found working with them? 
• It’s good to contact a few different therapists so you can compare responses.
• When you telephone or meet with them, do you feel they understand what you are talking about?  Do they understand what you want from therapy and/or help you to clarify what a good outcome will be for you?  Do you feel some relief? Have you gained a little understanding?  Does their approach seem to have some potential to help you?
• Alongside your thinking, a key element to making a good choice is listening to your gut feelings.  If your gut has a warm comfortable response to the above questions, this is a good sign.  Then it’s worth making an appointment with that therapist.

What signs suggest that a therapist might not be helpful to you?

• During your first telephone conversation you feel the therapist hasn’t quite understood what you’re looking for.
• You get an uncomfortable feeling talking to them .
• What they say doesn’t make clear sense to you.
• In your first meeting you feel confused, overwhelmed or frustrated then you should seriously consider checking out someone else.  

A good therapist will help you find clarity and you should start to feel some sense of relief and potential in a first meeting.  If you don’t, don’t book another appointment!  Save yourself time and money by looking for someone more suitable

Give yourself time to make the best choice

When you are struggling to get a grip on tricky problems it takes courage and strength to seek help and you deserve the best help possible.  Even if your need for help is urgent, I strongly recommend you allow yourself enough time to find a therapist who you feel comfortable with and think you can learn from.  This will increase your opportunity to make the changes you want.  Rushing and choosing someone quickly, because you need help now, can end up being a painful, expensive experience, if it turns out they are really not right for you.  Taking a little time in advance, to really check out your potential therapist, could save you a lot of time and money and increase your chances of getting the results you want. You deserve the best so give yourself a little time to find it.

If I can be of further help and you have any questions just post them below and I will be pleased to respond.

What is Therapy: Life Coaching, Counselling, Psychotherapy or Psychology?

When we feel stuck, stressed, depressed or our friendships or relationships are not working, a little help from someone objective can really turn things around and enable us to feel happy and in control of our lives again.  With so many different therapies out there, trying to identify the best person to help you can feel like an overwhelming task.  Where do you start, who will give you the results you need and provide you with value for money?  And what is therapy anyway?  Which approach is best, what will it do for me?  

I’ve written this short blog in the hope of providing you with some answers to these questions.  I give a brief overview of what therapy is about, how the main approaches differ from each other and where you can find a quality therapist.  I hope this gives you some assistance in finding the help you need.  I’m also in the process of writing another blog.  This will outline key points to consider when you want to find an effective therapist.  I plan to post it within next week or so. 

If you have any queries or questions you’d like to ask, just post me a question and I’ll be pleased to answer.  If you don’t know the field it can be confusing stuff to get your head around.  I hope this helps you in some way.

So what is therapy?

Therapy is often a word used to refer to some form of life coaching, counselling or psychotherapy.  The aim of each of these approaches is to help you tackle emotional and psychological challenges and to achieve your personal goals.  Through a process of conversation, questions, exercises and experiments, they can help you expand your understanding of problems and identify effective ways in which to deal with them.  Each approach uses some similar and some different methods.  All approaches aim to be encouraging and supportive.  Psychology is a broad field which is not only therapeutic, this is explained further below.

What is Life Coaching

Life coaching focuses directly on identifying what you wish to achieve in the present and future.  Coaches help you identify manageable goals and then set tasks for you to undertake in order to achieve your goals.  Coaches tend to use a combination of enquiry, diagrams and exercises to help you understand problem areas and identify ways of tackling them.  People can find the visual and active elements of coaching helpful.  Coaching training does not study the influence of our past history when tackling problems (a coaching qualification can be obtained in 1-6 months) and therefore, some coaches try to encourage clients past a problem, through active strategies, which are not always effective.  The problem here is that, if you do not understand the value of a problematic habit fully, you will tend to keep on using it, despite good intentions.  Where coaching alone can fall short, counselling and psychotherapy can provide that extra help to understand and get through stubborn problems.

What is Counselling & Psychotherapy?

Both counselling and psychotherapy are often referred to as talking therapies.  This is because, the therapist uses a combination of questions, reflections and summaries which enable you to obtain a clearer understanding of the challenges you face and to uncover more effective ways of addressing them.  There are several different types of talking therapy.  Some have a strong past and present focus, for example, psychodynamic, psychoanalytic or person centred therapies. During these meetings, the client does most of the talking and the therapist provides summaries and/or interpretations which help build awareness. It is assumed that through awareness change emerges. Other psychotherapies, such as Gestalt, Transactional Analysis (TA) or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)) have additional proactive elements and include a stronger future focus similar to coaching.  Here suggestions, exercises and experiments are also used.  TA and CBT also include a psycho-educational element and when combined with developmental theory, they can provide you with a very helpful understanding of why you feel and behave certain ways.  Armed with this information you can begin to tackle difficult feelings more effectively and move more actively towards achieving your current and future goals.  You can read more information on how different therapeutic approaches work by clicking this link: London Counselling

Integrating Life Coaching, Counselling & Psychotherapy

At Maggie Morrow Associates, we discovered the best approach to helping people make the changes they want in their lives, is to use a combination of life coaching, counselling and psychotherapy.  We find this to be a more flexible and powerful way to help you effect more lasting change, than can be achieved through a single therapy approach alone.  We believe each individual has a unique way of learning and it is the therapy that needs to be tailored to the individual, not that the individual should adapt to the therapy approach.  You’ve had enough adapting to go through in childhood!  You can read more information about how we approach helping people make the changes they want, by following this link: Counsellor London

What is the difference between counselling and psychotherapy?

Historically, counselling trainings were shorter and less in-depth compared to psychotherapy.  So counselling was viewed as an intervention that was helpful with lighter problems but a counsellor was not equipped to deal with more complex issues.  Today, the difference between counselling and psychotherapy is not so great, as counselling trainings have become more rigorous.  When choosing a counsellor or psychotherapist, it is a good idea to look at the length and quality of training the therapist has undertaken.  At minimum, I recommend you choose a therapist with at least 3 years training.  Someone with 5-7 years will be more informed.

What is Psychology / A Psychologist? 

There are a variety of specialists in this field, ranging from research to health or business psychology.  Not all psychologists are trained to provide therapy.  Therefore, if you are seeking therapy for emotional difficulties, I recommend Counselling Psychologists as the most appropriate specialists from this field.  They are trained in a number of therapies most often, psychodynamic, CBT and person centred.  The approach of a counselling psychologist will be similar to that of a psychotherapist who has trained in a range of therapies.

Where can I find an effective Life Coach, Counsellor, Psychotherapist or Psychologist?

One place you can consider in Central London is Maggie Morrow Associates.  Maggie won a national award for providing quality and excellence in this field in 2007 and in 2009 established her own service in the City of London.  This service is comprised of highly effective and award winning psychotherapists.  We provide life coaching, counselling and psychotherapy in an integrated form.  The quality of our work is demonstrable both from client testimonials and evidence based outcomes.  If we cannot help you we may be able to recommend someone who can.  You can find out more about us by clicking this link: Psychotherapy London