10 tips for choosing a good psychologist

Choosing the psychologist who is going to offer us your sessions may seem like a simple task in an age when the internet allows you to quickly locate the closest consultation.

If we live in a small population, we may only need to find out which mental health professionals practice in our area. locality, and if we are in a large urban nucleus we will continue to have many tools to inform us about all inquiries close. However, things get complicated when we introduce the variable "quality" into the equation.

Choosing a good psychologist is not always an easy task, since 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 of the psychologists available in the zone. However, you can follow some general guidelines that will help you choose a good psychologist.

Here you have ten of these keys.

1. Make sure she's a psychologist or psychologist

The first point in choosing a good psychologist is... make sure he's a psychologist or psychologist. It seems like a very obvious point, but it is worth bearing in mind. Labels and names abound in the labor market that make us think that whoever uses them to define himself is a psychologist. However, it is not true: nowadays it is possible to present oneself as a "psychotherapist" or "therapist" without having completed a university degree in psychology. Have been reported cases of labor intrusion.

Someone who claims to be a psychotherapist does not have to be a psychologist, although a psychologist can be a psychotherapist. To be sure that the person offering the sessions has university training in psychologyYou can check if it has a collegiate number and an official university degree.

2. Check that they have a specialization in what you are looking for

There are many types of psychologists, Y not all of them have to be suitable for what you are looking for. To begin with, you should find out if the professional who is going to treat you is specifically trained in Clinical psychology, since there are also psychologists whose specialization is focused on marketing, research in laboratories or Human Resources. Keep in mind that, depending on the country you live in, to be a clinical psychologist may be enough with a university degree or you may also have to complete at least a post-university master's degree.

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

3. Find out about the type of psychotherapeutic approach offered

A psychologist can offer psychotherapeutic approaches that currently do not have solid evidence about their effectiveness, such as the past life therapy and other alternative therapies. This is no reason to discard their services, but it is worth bearing in mind that certain practices do not have the endorsement of science.

Alternative therapies can be more or less useful depending on each case, since the usefulness or not is determined by the patient through your 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 take into account that the form of psychological treatment that has the greatest scientific endorsement is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, although there are treatments that have been shown to be effective in addressing specific disorders. That is why the best thing you can do is ask for information on the degree of effectiveness scientifically demonstrated with which they have the treatments offered and, from that point, decide on one or the other direction.

4. Make sure 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 disclosed by any professional psychologist or by any company constituted by psychologists. If this confidentiality is violated in any way, that fact may be cause for complaint.

5. You must sign an informed consent document

Before starting therapy, You should be given a dossier with information about the services available and, specifically, the type of therapy you choose. Attached to this type of dossiers must be the informed consent document, in which you sign as you are aware of what will be done during the sessions.

6. Does it offer evaluation and diagnosis?

At the beginning of the visits, a psychologist must explore the patient's problem through an evaluation stage that should not go beyond the first 4 or 5 sessions. This will allow you 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 lengthens the evaluation stage indefinitely, mix this phase with the treatment, or you notice that her explanation of the diagnosis is deliberately confusing and esoteric, consider interrupting the sessions.

7. Is your proposal for his intervention clear?

Choosing a good psychologist is also choose a professional who knows how to communicate well with his patients and who does not reserve information about his plan to intervene through 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.

Similarly, you also have to be able to offer clear answers to all the doubts about the therapy that arise.

8. The psychologist should not judge you

Psychology professionals they should never judge their patients, as her role is aimed at offering solutions and directing efforts towards clear objectives. They are not concerned with being guardians of morality. A psychologist must know how to promote a good rapport, that is, an environment of trust that allows you to express yourself without ties.

In part, this is the reason that enables patients to behave honestly during sessions.

9. How does the therapeutic relationship go?

Clinical psychologists work to help find solutions, not to befriend his patients or to become romantically involved with them. Establishing personal relationships with patients is against the deontological code of psychologists.

If you notice that the person offering you treatment behaves like a friend or makes you know that they are looking for the continuity of your relationship in the hours in which you are not treated as a professional, you should abandon therapy immediately.

10. Do you find it useful to go to your consultation?

As a last resort, you should be the person who evaluates the usefulness of going to the psychologist. Thus, psychologists cannot pressure you to continue treatments, nor should they tell you that you don't realize how helpful your services are being.

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

Summarizing...

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

If you have any questions about the role of the psychologist and the therapist-patient relationship, all you have to do is leave your question in the comments (below the post) and we will answer you with pleasure.