What do you look for in a therapist?

Intellectual acuity and mental agility; if this is someone I’m going to be spending some time with, I want him or her to appreciate wordplay and thoughtplay.

Empathy and understanding for the situations I’m likely to be struggling with.

I told my primary-care physician that I had three criteria:

1) Therapist must be Jewish – thereby saving lots of explanations
2) Therapist must be near my age- thereby having had some life experience
3) Therapist must be smarter than I am – thereby being able to engage properly and not let me outwit him/her.

I struck gold- the therapist and I spent our first ten minutes together and then I went weekly for several years.

I look for someone who seems to be interested in what they are doing. My first therapist never seemed to be totally present when I would be talking. So being in the moment to the best of ones ability is a big thing. Also, just showing that it’s okay for your client to relax, open up and be comfortable, which is the whole reason for going to begin with. The therapist I see now is awesome. One thing that she does, which I really like, is she repeats what I am talking about to make sure we are on the same page and not misunderstanding each other.