What kind of therapist do I need?

Look through a counselling directory and there are hundreds of us. Different faces, different qualifications and a surprising number of abbreviations. Everyone sounds compassionate. Everyone offers a safe space.

But how do you choose someone for your particular situation? For being, well, you. An individual with your own experiences, your own ways of coping and your own pain that might be difficult to put into words.

Yes, you need someone who is non-judgemental, empathetic and willing to listen. I would like to think those are the basics of what we do. But that still leaves you with a lot of profiles to scroll through.

So, what else matters?

You don’t need to know all the answers before you start

You might know exactly what brings you to therapy. A bereavement. A relationship that has ended. Anxiety that is making your world smaller.

Or you might simply know that something doesn’t feel right. You keep finding yourself in the same situations, reacting in ways you don’t understand or feeling exhausted by things that seem manageable for everyone else.

You don’t need to arrive with a diagnosis, a neatly organised life story or a clear set of goals. Part of therapy is making sense of what is happening together.

You can start with: “I don’t really know how to explain it.”

That is enough.

Therapists haven’t got life all sorted

There is a common myth that therapists have somehow worked life out. We always communicate calmly, have excellent boundaries and never lie awake overthinking something we said three days ago.

I wish.

We are human too. We have our own stories, losses, mistakes and memories of pain.

The psychologist Carl Jung explored the idea of the “wounded healer”: how a person’s experience of suffering can influence the way they support others. For some therapists, understanding their own pain is part of what drew them to this work.

But having suffered doesn’t automatically make someone a good therapist. Training, supervision, self-awareness and professional boundaries matter. Your therapist needs to recognise their own feelings and experiences without assuming yours are the same.

You should have room to be yourself in therapy, without feeling responsible for the person sitting opposite you.

What kind of therapy will help me?

You may have come across person-centred counselling, CBT, psychodynamic therapy or integrative therapy and wondered whether you need to research them all before making contact.

You don’t. But it can help to think about how you would like to work.

Perhaps you want space to talk and hear yourself think, without someone immediately jumping in with advice. Perhaps you would welcome structure, practical tools and ways to understand patterns in your thoughts and behaviour. Or perhaps you want to explore how earlier relationships and experiences are affecting your life now.

You might want a mixture. Your needs may also change as the work develops.

If you are looking for help with a particular difficulty, ask about the therapist’s experience and training in that area. A good therapist should be able to explain how they work in plain English, discuss whether they can help and recognise when another professional or service might be more suitable.

You are allowed to ask: “What would working with you actually look like?”

Will the pain go away?

It is an understandable question. When something hurts, we want relief.

I wouldn’t promise that therapy will erase what happened or make every painful memory disappear. But the way you experience those memories can change. Their weight may lessen. Something that takes over your whole day might, over time, become something you can remember without feeling completely pulled back into it.

That can involve understanding your reactions, recognising what triggers them and finding ways to respond with more choice and less self-blame.

It is a process. Sometimes there are moments when something clicks. Sometimes progress is quieter: saying no without spending the evening feeling guilty, asking for help or noticing that your inner voice has become a little kinder.

And you are allowed to want the pain to stop. You don’t have to hold on to suffering to honour what you have been through.

Your experiences have shaped you. They don’t have to define everything

What has happened to you may have shaped your sensitivity, humour, determination or ability to notice when someone else is struggling. You may recognise resilience in yourself, even if you are tired of having to use it.

That doesn’t mean the painful things needed to happen. You don’t owe anyone a positive lesson from them.

I think of wounds and scars. A wound needs care. A scar may remain, but how it feels can change. It may become less tender, less consuming, less likely to hurt every time something brushes against it.

Perhaps, in time, it will represent endurance, growth or survival for you. Perhaps it will simply be part of your history that no longer demands so much of your attention.

You get to decide what meaning, if any, you give it.

You need someone you can be honest with

The right therapist for you will be someone who takes the time to understand you, respects your pace and welcomes feedback about how the sessions feel.

That doesn’t mean every session will be comfortable. Therapy can bring difficult feelings into the room, and sometimes your therapist may gently challenge you. But you should be able to say, “That doesn’t fit,” “I need to slow down,” or “I’m not sure this is helping.”

You don’t have to agree with your therapist to be a good client. There is no prize for saying the right thing.

An introductory call can give you a first sense of the person behind the profile. Do you feel listened to? Can you ask questions? Can you imagine telling them something you usually keep to yourself?

You don’t need instant certainty. It is also okay to speak to more than one therapist before choosing.

How we work at Untangled Therapy

At Untangled Therapy, we believe the starting point is getting to know you, rather than assuming we already know what you need.

Our integrative approach allows us to draw on different therapeutic approaches within our training, adapting the work together around your needs, preferences and what emerges in the sessions.

Sometimes you may need space to talk about something you have never said aloud. At other times, you may want practical ways to manage anxious thoughts, understand a familiar pattern or approach a difficult conversation.

Therapies that follow one particular approach have their own value and may be exactly what suits you. What matters is finding an approach, and a person, that fits.

You bring your whole experience into the room. The parts you understand, the parts that confuse you and the parts you worry someone might judge. We want to make room for all of it.

You are here. You have started looking, and that can take more courage than people realise.

We offer counselling in Bromley and online, with a free 15-minute introductory call to help you decide whether we feel like the right fit.

Book your free call. Let’s take the next step together.

Free intro call · Confidential · No obligation