Pull Up a Couch and Let’s Talk

It’s hardest to find when you need it most. It’s one of the most important relationships in your life. It involves commitment to another person. Yet you cannot just trust your heart to a perfect stranger. So how do you choose a therapist?

The experienced therapy consumer will have no problem. The experienced therapy consumer will already have gone through six or seven different therapists by the time he is 40. But what of the beginner, the psychovirgin, the babe in the analytic woods?

Choosing a therapist would be so much easier if newspapers would start a therapy personals section. Then we might see ads like:

--Well-read, well-educated professor at Ivy League college with own home, sports car and emotional baggage seeks classic Freudian.

--Woman who loves too much seeks handsome, married hypnotherapist. No head trips, please.

--Hip, athletic, urban male into obsessive-compulsive disorder wants Jungian play therapist for quiet evenings.

--Environmentally sensitive lesbian seeks radical-feminist, neo-Reichian, neurolinguistic programmer.

But newspapers are no help when it comes to finding therapists. Unlike a book or a movie, therapists don’t get reviewed. “A session with Dr. Lobestein is like a jog in the Bois de Boulogne,” says the New York Times. The Kansas City Star says, “Don’t miss the part where he asks, ‘When were you first aware of the dragon?’ ” Consumers Reports says, “At $45 a pop, his free associations are a steal.” Siskel and Ebert say, “A genius with regression. Two thumbs aren’t enough.”

But there isn’t even a stinkin’ New York Review of Shrinks right there in the therapy capital of America. The best way to find a therapist is to get a recommendation from a friend. But it’s hard to feel totally convinced when someone says, “This guy is great. I’ve been seeing him three times a week for 10 years.”

Another problem with finding a therapist is coming up with one who will see you when you are actually disturbed. From some reason, most therapists want to see only people who are articulate, cheerful and working at a well-paying job. Many deal only with the walking wounded and seem repulsed by actual mental illness.

I had a friend who got through 1 1/2 paid sessions with a therapist. In the middle of the second session, after she had covered her parents’ deaths and the fire that destroyed everything, and just as she was getting to her suicide attempt, the therapist suddenly stopped her and said, “I’m sorry. I should tell you that I don’t see depressives.”

True story.

There are community groups that have a referral service for those seeking psychotherapy. You can look through the files and see things like: No schizophrenics, please. . . . Alcoholics need not apply. . . . Delusions of grandeur not welcome. . . . Women only.

God forbid an actual psychopath should ever want to take the cure.

It’s important that when you see a therapist for the first time, you take the initiative and interview her. Although she will mislabel you an aggressive personality, you must find out if you have come to a full-service station.

The first question you will want to ask is, “Do you validate?” Validation is the biggest thing in therapy since giving permission. It means that they will let you be you. Strange as it may sound, a lot of people need to pay to get things they should have gotten from their parents or a parking lot attendant.

Finally, you will want to know what kind of support your therapist has to offer. Therapists vary like panty hose on the support issue. You need to know right away if you are dealing with firm support, mild support or control top.

Remember, if you can keep your head while all about you others are losing theirs and blaming it on you, you should have no problem finding a shrink. It’s the one true test of sanity.