How to Choose the Right Therapist

In this solo episode of Alison Answers, I’m answering a question I get asked all the time:

"How do I choose the right therapist?"

Therapy should not be a place where you simply rehearse your pain every week.

A good therapist should help you feel safe, understand yourself more clearly, notice your patterns, and begin building the life you actually want.

If you are thinking about starting therapy, looking for a new therapist, or wondering if the therapy you are in is truly helping you grow, this episode will give you a clearer way to choose.

You’ll learn what to look for, what to pay attention to, and why the right therapist should help you become more empowered, not more attached to your pain.

In this episode:

00:00 Intro
00:41 How do I choose the right therapist?
04:00 Five tips for choosing the right therapist
04:24 A good therapist helps you become empowered
10:58 You should feel safe enough to be honest
20:07 You are not a checklist
22:04 A therapist helps you discover patterns
26:20 A therapist should help you build the life you want
37:06 Closing message

Connect with Alison:

• Instagram: @alisonanswers | @lagercounseling
• Website: LagerCounseling.com
• YouTube: Alison Answers
• Facebook: Alison Lager Lcsw Casac
• Purchase Alison’s book: “The Wake Up Call”
• Alison Answers Facebook Group: Join HERE
• Women of Excellence FB group: Join HERE

⚠️ Crisis Resources:
Lager Counseling Services
Call: 516-221-2123
Text: (914) 363-0381
Wantagh: 3408 Park Ave. Wantagh, NY 11793

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (24/7, free, confidential)
Call or text 988 | Visit 988lifeline.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A lot of people ask me, how do I choose the right therapist? Their role is not to tell you how to live, their role is to help you see yourself more clearly, understand yourself so you can create the life you want. A good therapist helps you become empowered and not attached to the victim mentality. So if the therapist goes over things with you for years without any idea of transformation, of awareness, of actionable steps, your therapist should be helping you change your identity. Who are you? Who is this person sitting in front of me? What kind of life are they trying to build? A lot of people have never been asked that question. Think about it. Have you ever been asked that question? Hey, hey, hey guys, how are you today? It is Allison from Allison Answers and Lager Counseling Services. I'm going to talk to you about something that a lot of people ask me, and they ask me my personal life, people ask me everywhere. This one question is how do I choose the right therapist? And I thought maybe I would hone in on this particular episode on how actually to do that, because it's really important. It's important. If you're going to be meeting with someone weekly and you're partnering with this person to basically transform your life and to create the life that you actually want, how would it make sense to meet with someone that maybe you wouldn't choose as a friend or somebody you wouldn't choose as someone that you highly respect, or somebody that, you know, we have to remember that as therapists, we're not better than anyone. And I think a lot of people will put us in either the category that we're horrible or that the category that we are like um, you know, so much smarter and all of that. So I'm gonna tell you some things that I really believe are really super important in choosing the right therapist. So as I said, it's a really significant decision. And especially if you're someone who's open and you you're open to influence and you're you really wanna be someone who changes their life. But if you are very easily influenced, you want to make sure who you sit in a room with and that you don't just follow somebody blindly. If you notice inside of your body that things are just don't feel right or you feel judged. So I'm gonna go on. A therapist is not somebody who's better than you, like I said. And they're a human being, you know, they're a human being with training and experience, but they also need to be a lot of other things. It's not just going to school makes you a therapist. It doesn't. Believe me, I went to school for eight years plus probably another five years. And that is not what has made me a great therapist. I know I'm a great therapist. And the reason I'm a great therapist is because I can see the outcomes. I can see that people transform their lives. Now, I'm not, I'm just here to facilitate that process and create like a like an encouraging environment and a fertile environment to grow for a person to be able to grow in. And typically, and you know, therapists got a really bad rap on TV, you know, people depict us as being absolutely crazy. Some people are, some people who are therapists are crazy, and a lot of people aren't. So it's like, you know, we get that bad rap, but also another thing is that there's this kind of notion that people go to therapy and they just rehearse their problems over and over again and they're labeled. And there is truth to that. We don't do that. I don't do that, I don't believe in it. I don't think you should be with the therapist who does that. So basically, their role is not to tell you how to live, right? Their role is never to do that. Their role is to help you see yourself more clearly, understand yourself so you can create the life you want. But there's something very important in that you also want to make sure that when they're helping you to see yourself, that you're not seeing yourself in the identity of a victim, in the identity like where you're judging yourself. Remember, help you to see yourself with a kind lens and with a true understanding as to why you're doing what you do, while you're feeling what you feel, while you're, you know, interacting the way you're interacting. You want to understand it. So, you know, nothing changes until it becomes what it is. That's a fact. So I'm gonna give you a bunch of like like a series of tips to choosing a therapist. So I'm gonna give you five. So, number one, a good therapist helps you become empowered and not attached to the victim mentality or to a label or to a diagnosis. We never do that here. I don't believe in that, and I'm never gonna do that. Every person has experienced pain, everybody has disappointment, trauma, rejection. Like there's so many things that all of us go through, hardship, and it's all on different very variables, and we all have different degrees of that. But a good therapist will absolutely help you process these experiences. So I want to explain. There's like a difference. There's a therapist who rehearses the problems with you over and over again, whereby just basically making them stronger in your neurological makeup, in your body, and in your emotions, or there's somebody who helps you move through them, which is a little different. So, what that means is that yes, you can come in and you can share, you can dump, you can get all your stuff off your chest. You want to be able to do that, and you need the environment to do that, right? So you want the person to be able to hear you without judgment. So the thing is that they're gonna help you understand a good therapist, not a bad therapist. A good therapist is there's a difference between like processing your pain and building an identity around it, which a lot of people, and I think it's one of our biggest ills in our society and and in mental health, I see it, is the victim mentality. It's for hands down, like it's like if you don't realize that what's happening in your life is happening for you, and how can I take this and squeeze every last bit out of this terrible experience, no matter how bad it is, and find a way to build something great in it? You want a therapist who's right there with you to just take that on and do that with you, right? So a therapist should help you understand what happened, how it affected you, right? What beliefs you established and formed because of this trauma or this experience, right? There's that. And then what patterns have emerged from it? Because we have patterns that emerge from very, very, very, very young age that create behaviors that are just there to protect us, that are there to keep us in denial, they're there as like defense mechanisms. So the thing is, is that if we make an identity around our defense mechanisms, we make an identity around our fears or the things that we're protecting, we're just creating a life that's not even real. It's not even who we are. So healing means like acknowledging what happened, right? And then discover your power to create what happens next, right? So it's like, okay, this is what happened. Believe me, I have had such a series of things throughout my life that have happened. I could so easily be saying, this all happened to me. Oh my gosh, you know, like I'm a victim. Anyone would agree with me. And people love to, you know, like, you know, um, what's the word? Like kind of soften it for me. People would love for me to complain about my life and tell them all the different things that I've gone through. I just don't see my life that way. I see that each of the experiences as unbelievably difficult and really sometimes like to the point where I didn't even know if I wanted to live really seriously. Like, how will I ever get over this or get through it? Not over it. It's the only way out is through. It and it's really, if you can understand that while you're going through something, that it's literally building something in you, even if you're not actively doing anything about it. However, if you're kind of like building with a therapist an identity that is, this happened to me, and now this is my whole life, you're in trouble. Like you don't want to do that. Okay. So I just want to really drive that home. If therapy becomes of years of like, or even like weeks, or let me take that back. It could, you could rehearse and go over for weeks, you know, things that have, you know, troubled you, but with the intent. Everything is the intent. So if a therapist goes over things with you for years, that what happened in your life without any idea of transformation, of awareness, of actionable steps, you may just like simply be like strengthening neurologically what's there and you know what fires together, wires together. So each year or each circumstance that you attach your victim experiences to, you know, it becomes more and more infused and embedded in your life. It becomes like this tapestry of victim or fear or anger or all these different things that it becomes an identity. I can tell you, like a long time ago, it was probably, I would say like a long time, like I was in my 20s, where I recognized at some point, I was a therapist at that time, but I recognized that I had built like that was fabric, it was like fabric in my being. And it was fear, and it was a part of who I believed I was. And I did, I was shocked when I discovered it. I was like, oh my God, fear has become a large portion of my identity. And I needed to make a decision for that not to be my identity anymore. And you know, I I remember I spent about 24 hours crying, not being able to function and trying to then, but there was a release that happened. So I just want you to remember that healing doesn't require ongoing rehearsing. It requires awareness, discovery, and then understanding the influences it has on your life, and then that awareness is always the beginning of change. So I always say, like, you want to be awake and aware in the now without judgment. So if you start judging yourself in the moment of discovery, you're kind of losing something. So the whole point of healing is you're just not in a state where you're judging yourself. What you're doing is you're changing yourself and you're you're looking at it like realistically. I don't, I don't like the word realistically. You're looking at it like very clearly, you can see it. And now what am I gonna do about it? Not, oh, boo-hoo, poor me. Um, I've developed this my whole life, you know, and then beating yourself up. Number two, you should feel safe enough to be honest. So you walk in a room with a therapist, this is your first time, you want to be self-aware. It's very natural to be nervous. But therapists who are good know how to help you not to feel nervous. They will talk about it right away. Hey, what is it like for you to be here for the first time? Hey, listen, it can be really what I do is I will say, and I encourage other therapists to do the same thing, like to say, hey, listen, you know, whether you're nervous or not, so I wouldn't like necessarily call them out and say, you know, sometimes it's just a little wonky, like you're meeting a new person. So I will call it out. I'll say, uh, you don't know me, and I don't know you, but what I can tell you is that the goal is that we really know one another and that we create an atmosphere together where you feel like you can tell me anything. And I don't expect you to be able to tell me everything right now. But one thing I can tell you, and I'm telling you guys this, that I don't tell people this unless I mean it. And what I say to them is, you know, I'm bound by federal law, you know, confidentialist confidentiality means I'm bound by federal law. Anything you talk about here, I absolutely cannot tell other people what. But my number one priority in your life, that's why confidentiality is so important. My number one priority sitting here is that you discover over time, not today, but that I will never, ever, ever judge you. Anything you tell me, we're gonna, we're gonna look at, we're gonna, we're gonna um be aware of, and then we're gonna take it and we're gonna create something great about it. And you don't, and I will always say to them, you don't know me yet, but you're gonna find out soon that I'm just not a person who's gonna do it. I'm just not doing it. So, and in a marriage counseling setting, one of the things I always say is I I wanna be super clear with you that, you know, my client is your marriage, uh, my client is your is you as a couple, and um it's not you or you, and I never referee. It's not about who's right or wrong. It's create, I will only create understanding between the two of you so you can get to the point where you move toward a goal that you've decided together. And I will never determine he said, she said. So that kind of communication in the beginning is helpful because they know what to expect. So you want to pay attention, like if you're going into a therapy session, like notice your nervous system. Now, obviously, people get nervous and you and it depends on how self-aware you are, because if you're not that self-aware, it's gonna be a little harder to determine if you're nervous and it's coming from your own fears, or if it's like, wow, you know, there's something that just doesn't feel right with this person. And I would want you to, you know, feel better and better with that. So, like, do you feel judged? Do you feel accepted? Do you feel like this you have to perform or say the right thing, right? You want to really ask yourself that question. You know, do I feel like, do I feel safe enough to be completely transparent? And you may have never been transparent in your life, but as a therapist, I gotta tell you, a good therapist can get you there. And it's not like you have to do all the work. They have a way of communicating with you to create an atmosphere. Like even if a therapist starts to say, hey, some people who've been through what you've been through, you know, feel this, you know, and it's really like a normal, natural thing to feel this kind of thing. I'm not saying you feel it, but I just want you to know it's, you know, it's it's pretty normal to feel nervous when you come to therapy, or it's pretty normal to, and I I don't like the word normal, but I will say, you know, it's really common to hear that people feel this or that. And this is a way of creating a warmth or like, you know, you're not, you're not, you know, this kind of weird person who has like who has these like like terrible issues. We always want to be the person who's able to bring that feeling down and allow you to really, really feel good in the room. All right. Trust, safety, um, acceptance is like essential. It's it's the most important thing. And you don't need like to have instant comfort, but you should feel like this person, this therapist in front of you, like they genuinely are trying to understand you. Like they're not trying to evaluate you, they want to understand you. So that's very important. Like, so when it becomes in like a checklist and all of that, and believe me, we have an extensive thing. We ask, we ask a million questions. However, there's a way to do it. So you want like your therapist to be to see you first, not the answers that they're looking for without explaining what those answers are, right? Like what why we're looking for the answer. I think a great therapist explains to you every step of the way what they're doing. Hey, I'm, you know, I just want you to know I'm processing what you said. That's why I'm being a little quiet at the moment. Like I will tell people what is happening in the room. Hey, I'm just trying to put these different things together, and this kind of feels like the same flavor. And I'm just, I'm, I'm, or I might say, oh, let's take this. I want to put that on the shelf. I want you to continue talking about what you're talking about, but I'm highlighting this so we can get back to it. So I'm always explaining what is happening in the room. Have you ever gone to a doctor that just tells you, hey, okay, so you're gonna, you know, this, you're gonna do this, this, and this. And they never tell you why. They don't even explain anything to you. By the way, don't go to that doctor. You deserve an explanation about what's happening in the room that you're trying to change your life in, right? I think. Okay. So they're not there to evaluate you, they're there to connect with you, to understand you. Number three, they focus on who you are today and not and what you want to be in the future. So, as a therapist, and I want to make sure I I really map this out for you. We have to, in order to be really good at what we do, we have to understand what built you into where you are today. That is true. It's super helpful. We need it. So, like we need the history, we need the background, we need your childhood, we need how you related to your mother and father, how your mother and father related to one another. And but the thing is, is like it's art, it's like a relationship. So if you're noticing that you're coming in and somebody's just, you know, writing down answers, oh, what was your relationship like with your mother? And by the way, we asked that question, but there's a way to ask that question. So if they're just writing it on a computer or they're just jotting, you know, it down, they're not seeing you. So what is really helpful in the first session is that what I do, and it doesn't mean every therapist should do this, is I will say, hey, you know, I know that you came in and you have stuff on your mind, your heart, whatever. So I want to just give you space to talk about that. And what I'd like to do is section off that some period of time together where I ask you a million questions. And I'm gonna explain to you the reason I'm asking these questions. I think it's valuable to have a therapist who tells you the reason they're asking the questions, they don't just ask the questions. So to me, the I explain to them the reason I ask these questions is so uh if I can get a fuller understanding of your life up until now, it helps me to recognize things for you as we move along, six months down the line. If you bring up something that's conflictual or something that you can't figure out what the pattern is, if I have that underbelly information, I'm a better therapist for you. So, although it may be a lot of questions, we can take our time. And as I'm getting to know you, I'm gonna learn more and more about you. So, how do you feel about me asking you these questions? If I come across a question that, you know, remember, I ask everyone these questions. So it's not like because I think a particular thing about you, it's because these are value, this is valuable information. Okay. So the things that I want to know. So we don't want to just do the paperwork. So, and this is not just about me. This is you looking for a therapist, because obviously you're not gonna come to me. So this is the thing. So before diving into forms and paperwork and like the they're gonna understand like, who are you? Who is this person sitting in front of me? What what what what are they struggling with? Right? Like, what do they want? You know, what made them come now? What kind of life are they trying to build? A lot of people have never been asked that question. Think about it. Have you ever been asked that question? What kind of life are you trying to build? If you could have anything magical, what would it be? People don't even know how to answer that. If you know, what would a successful life look like for you? You know, they should feel like a person, right? And like somebody who's like, wow, like I'm gonna, even though you're in a hard place right now, we are also gonna build you into a place where you're gonna be like ecstatic, like and happy. So now we go into number four. So remember, let me back up. Number three, you're not a checklist, right? You're a person. So you want to feel like that. You want to feel like they're connecting with you and they're letting, they're giving you the room to be you. So let's say you just, you know, I went to a therapist once and I was like, oh, you know what? I told them straight up, the only thing I need, I just need to get a lot of shit off my chest. That's it. I am only, I'm just gonna talk for like a couple of days that we're together. And I need to get it out. I don't need your evaluation, I don't need you, you know, your insight or wisdom for a period of time. And she was cool. She was like, sure, you just sit, I'm gonna listen. But we had an we, I mean, I led that. I don't know what have would have happened if I met her and then I didn't say that. And then, and that happened. So let me point that out. So for me, I know what to ask for, I know that I can, you know, kind of direct how my therapy goes by going in and saying what I want. A lot of people wouldn't, and a lot of people wouldn't feel comfortable doing it, and a lot of therapists wouldn't necessarily adjust to it. So if the therapist doesn't adjust to it, I mean, I don't think you should go to them. So, you know, if you know you just really need to talk a lot for the first couple of sessions, you could just tell them that. I need to get a lot off my chest. If you know that you know that you need somebody to kind of give you guidance about a particular situation in your life, which is very, very normal. People will have a really like they'll have a falling out with someone, or they'll they'll discover that their spouse cheated on them, or they'll have like, you know, some a problem with one of their kids, and they need specific help. And it feels frustrating when somebody starts asking you about your history. So a therapist should be able to adjust and kind of have the art flowing with you and determine. Determining, hey, how would this best work for you right now? If you want to talk about a specific thing, let's do that today and let's talk about how we get there, right? So a therapist, number four, they help you discover your own patterns instead of like simply giving their opinion. If your therapist is giving you an opinion, if they're they, and they're not asking you powerful, astute questions that make you really think, that make you go in and ask yourself the question. You don't even have to have the answer. Having a question asked you already starts the ball rolling, right? Questions that make you stop, that make you go, oh shoot, I never thought about that. You know, they they make you they help you notice patterns. So they may say, hey, you know, I noticed like a few things that you talked about, um, and they're all in various periods of time. So in those various periods of time, the situations aren't the same, but the flavor feels the same to me. I would love your feedback on that. You see how I asked the therapist or uh the client a question? I'm giving them the respect. I'm not just saying, well, that sounds like this kind of pattern. I've seen that all across your life. I don't know. I wouldn't want someone to say that to me. Because we know ourselves best, right? And if we discover it, you know, more most likely we're not going to feel defensive or feel like, wait a minute, like, is that actually true? Like that we're influenced by that. We want to know. We want to go in and say, oh yeah, yeah, I wonder if that is the same flavor. And you don't even have to know at that moment, right? So questions that lead to your own discoveries. That's real learning, that's real growing. They don't send, you know, like spend the session like giving their opinion, right? Taking sides. I'm gonna tell you something straight up. You got a therapist who takes sides, you got to really question what's happening. You know, that if they're telling everyone, telling you that everyone in your life is doing the wrong thing, and then discussing how that person needs to change, they're really not doing. I mean, you could talk to like um, you know, an unhealthy friend like that, you know, like that's easy. You could find anybody on the street to do that with you who's gonna criticize people who have hurt you. But you know what? The point is whether that person is criticizable, like should change or whatever, that's not what therapy is about. It's about you understanding you, you understanding the reason that you're in it, you understanding the reason that it's difficult to like get clarity on it, whatever the issue is, it's not, and sometimes a therapist will validate you just by you know being able to say, Yeah, I could see how that hurt. Yeah, yeah, I could see how that really like more asking the question, like, wow, when that experience happened, like what went on inside of you? You see the difference? But if I said, like somebody complained about, you know, somebody doing something really, you know, lousy to them, and I said, Oh my God, I can't believe they did that to you. That's awful. I mean, you can get that at CBS. You know what? You know what I'm saying? Like, what you want is somebody to go, like, yeah, wow, what was it? Now, instead of telling you, just go, what was that like for you? You know, what were you like? What did you feel? What'd you think? Like, what was happening in your body? Like, do you know where you felt that? Like, what did you do? How did you handle it? You know, and then you look at how they handled it so that you can help them change those patterns. Because sometimes people, when they have a bad experience, they react to it and it causes more problems because they're not going inward to discover, they're going outward to blame and change, which is the worst. That's like emotional drunkenness as opposed to emotional sobriety. So if they're if they're giving you their opinion, the sides and blah, blah, blah, and everybody's wrong, run. That's all I have to say. Instead of like helping you, like, you want them to help you become more aware of yourself, yeah? So, because awareness is where like really lasting change happens. Nothing changes until it becomes what it is. Correct? Okay. Number five, they help you build the life you want. So, this is not necessarily a typical thing that you'll see in therapy. This is kind of where I feel like we differentiate ourselves, but I'm sure there's a lot of therapists who do do this and believe in this. So it's like, it's kind of like a great therapist does their own personal development. They get it, they have a growth mindset. They're a person who's like, they're not just they're not here just to talk to you weekly. They're here to like actionably assist you in creating an amazing life for yourself. And it's not the life they think you should have, it's the life that you may not even have even discovered that you actually want. So, like just to simplify this, like as a therapist, it's not that hard to reduce symptoms or alleviate symptoms. It's not really that hard. What is like like you wanna what you want to do is you want to help the person be able to now what we do is we step on the gas at this point. Like, how are they gonna create healthier relationships? How are they gonna they they're gonna recognize the the any patterns that are hurting them, any self-sabotaging patterns? How are they gonna create an emotional resilience instead of you know being like a victim of circumstances emotionally? How am I how are they gonna emotionally regulate in such a way that they become badasses, right? That they can handle things, right? We don't want to make take the things away and make them feel like they can handle it and pour you. We want them to say, okay, that was really hot tough and I hear you, and it would be hard for anyone. Now, like, what how do we help you to become empowered, right? So now we want to help them clarify their dreams and goals. So your therapist, you want to be able to at some point know what where you want to go in your life. Like what a lot of times people have dreams that they just think that is just not possible. They they feel like they're so big that they'll never get there. And then they just go to the grave with their dreams and the things they want. And I gotta tell you straight, straight up, like that is horrible to me. Like, you know, this podcast is about crushing mediocrity. So a therapist should be there to help you crush your own mediocrity. It's very important. Move toward purpose and meaning. So you, so, and also not be like, oh my God, I feel anxious. Oh my god, I'm depressed, oh my god, I'm this, oh my god, I'm that. And I'm not talking about people like there's some people who are really in like really like serious chronic depression. So I'm not specifically talking about that, but it's a lot of rehearsed feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, and it's chemistry that we become addicted to. So the thing also, we want people to change their language, their use of words instead of calling everything after I am identifies them. So we're as a therapist, your therapist should be helping you change your identity, the identity you have that like is diminishing your dreams, the identity that's not that's keeping you in a stuck place, right? So it should be a collaborative experience with this person that you like. This person is not like better than you. It's actually someone who you would want to be your friend, but they're smart enough to know not to be your friend, that they're here for that sole purpose of like serving you and helping you get where you want to go. So it's it's not about them. Remember that too. It's not about the therapist. Okay, so they don't encourage mediocrity. They don't encourage, they don't like say like a dream is not realistic. You know, uh, that's not cool either. They don't tell you why you can't do something. Okay. They may ask you questions like, you know, how would you go about it and help you discover whether you really want to do it or how you would want to do it, right? So the real thing is they're gonna help you discover what's standing in the way of your dreams so that you can become the person who is capable of achieving that dream. So it's not just saying anyone can do anything because they can't. You know, if somebody repeatedly wants a certain kind of relationship, but they're not the person who sh who would attract that kind of relationship, a therapist should be able to help them with that and be honest enough with them to, you know, like have somebody write out the qualities that they want in a person or in a job or in a situation or with their children, and then have them go back over that list and ask themselves am I kind and considerate? Am I and ask yes or no? And all the areas that they're not the thing that they want to call into their life, they work on that and you help them. And it's a it's a collaboration of acceptance and warmth and an ability to just look at yourself, you know, in a cool way, like it's an adventure. It's not, it's not like, oh, I'm so bad. It's no, I'm I'm on my way to to this incredible outcome and I can't wait. And you want a therapist who encourages you and gets you there through like a real, like, you know, we can do this. And it doesn't mean that it's pop positive psychology, but it's just somebody who might say, when, you know, a teenager is saying, you know, I'm just I, you know, I'm anxious, and they're labeling themselves and they're giving themselves diagnoses. I got to tell you something seriously, like diagnoses are they're pretty serious, and people shouldn't just be like throwing them around. Oh, you know, my child suffers from anxiety. Your child's nervous and they have to be able to move through events that are uncomfortable in order to get to the other side where they feel comfortable. And then their amygdala, the part of the brain that's screaming a fire alarm, is now calmed down because they see that they got through it. You know, a lot of this kind of fear of letting kids feel anything has caused kids to actually create an identity of anxiety because they haven't moved through the event so that the brain can say, oh, she can succeed at this. Oh, she, you know, hard things aren't hard. Hard things are hard, but that's the avenue to greatness. That's the avenue to something good happening in my life. Are we teaching our kids to do that? And you want a therapist who's gonna help you do that. If you have social anxiety as a label, reconsider it. What do you what are you nervous about? Who isn't nervous to go into a new social setting? Most people are. If we magnify it and call ourselves this label, what happens? We believe it, then we act like it. When we walk in the room, all we see is what's to be afraid of. Instead of saying every social setting, I have to move through the discomfort to get to the comfort. And it is just basically practicing. What I practice, I get good at. If I practice anxiety, I get good at that. If I practice fear, if I practice anger, I'm gonna get better and better at that. So, what do I want to be good at? How do I want my life to be? So, all of these things that we're touching on here, we want the therapist to be able to foster that kind of a transformation. The thing also is that, you know, parents will bring kids in. And you've heard me talk about this over and over again, but we want to also assist a therapist should help a parent. When kids act out, it is not they kids act right when they feel right. If the therapist is there just to stop the behavior and to listen to the parent complain about the child, and then the therapist becomes the person who is telling them what to do or not to do, that's not the therapist you want for your child. What you want for your child is not someone who's going to listen to you complain about your child, that you're going to collaborate together to create a strategy at home where number one, the child feels connected to. The number one reason why kids of any age act out is because they need you to first reconnect with them. And I'm not talking about when the behavior is like heightened, because then that kind of just supports the behavior. You are able, you say, Oh wow, you know, am I connected to this child? Because when we have a connection with our child, we are more influential. So it's just, you know, you also want a therapist who's going to help you not to tell your kids things. This is the same thing with clients. Like a therapist shouldn't be telling you, you know, something that you need to tell yourself. A parent shouldn't be telling a child or an adult something they need to tell themselves. Now, I don't mean a little baby, we're teaching them, you know, they're looking to us for emotional cues as parents. But if your therapist is not teaching you how to understand your child and to understand how your child got to where they are and what their behavior is actually saying, then they're not helping you. And I want to encourage anybody who's a parent who goes to a therapist and says, here, fix my kid. You know what? You have to get involved because you're the number one indicator of how your child is going to behave. And that's a fact. So it is really, you're not a victim of your child. Children need to learn from you how to emotionally regulate. So when they need to learn how to, you want to be able to look at them and be able to understand them just like an adult. Understand the reason that they're finding this way of acting when it's really actually hurting them. It's hurting the relationship, it's hurting the family. So, parents, it's very, very important that kids, all kids want is to be loved and feel special and feel bonded to you. If they're doing things that are creating more resistance from you or you want to pull away or all of that, they're just trying to, they're trying to somehow get you. So remember that. Remember how important you are. And that's a whole other podcast, but that all is in regard to choosing a therapist. So if anybody has any questions or more things, you can DM me. You can also please like, comment, and subscribe. I am specifically asking for a favor. I do not monetize my podcast. I do not get anything from the podcast except for what you get out of it. That is my joy. So if people end up getting to a great therapist, if they end up, you know, not just sticking their kid in therapy without really reconnecting with them, if these things can change generations upon generations, that's what I want to see. But it would be really helpful. Any person that you know that this would actually be a benefit for them, I ask that you would share it. I also ask that you would follow me on all the different, you know, platforms: Apple Podcasts, comment, like, subscribe. YouTube is a big one because it does not match the listeners that I have. I have so many more listeners than who are subscribed on there. So it'd really help me a lot. It helps me to be able to do more things on YouTube. So um, yeah, and so this is not my full-time job. This is something that I'm doing as a service to you guys. So I would just really love if you would do that for me. So without any other talk about this, I hope you are blessed and have a beautiful, beautiful rest of your day. And when you're looking for a therapist, uh, remember these tips, please.