What Makes an Effective Therapist
According to Psychology Today, there are seven qualities that many people value in their therapists, making them effective in their work.
1. Trustworthy—Many secrets, fears, and thoughts are revealed behind closed doors. If the client does not feel the therapist is trustworthy, true revealing will not happen.
2. Open-minded—Therapists should never have an established routine that they use for every client. Every client is different and comes with their own ideas/background.
3. Questioning—A good therapist needs to be able to ask the right questions that lead their clients to deeper understanding and motivation.
4. Facilitates Accountability— Moving a client to a place of accountability – where the client accepts responsibility for their own change – opens up the paths for change. While change can be uncomfortable, it truly is the essence of therapy.
5. Adaptable— Just like a handyman has many tools in his toolbox, so should a good therapist. If one tool isn’t working, there should be no hesitation to try another one.
6. Unifying—When a couple or family sees a therapist, the therapist focuses on the relationships even above the individuals by looking at the whole couple or family system.
7. Self-aware— A good therapist knows who they are so that their own personal beliefs and issues don’t interfere with their ability to help a unique client.
Each of these is important. But I think this list is missing a big element to effective therapy. So, let me add element #8. I think the most important thing that makes a counselor or therapist effective is you, the client(s). Therapy is hard work: revealing your deepest thoughts/feelings, recognizing what parts of your life inside and outside yourself aren’t working and desiring to change, making hard choices, tolerating the pain of change, and most of all, having the courage to keep on going because change is a long process and most things don’t get solved overnight. Unless you are willing to do all that and more, no amount of therapeutic open-mindedness, trustworthiness, or adaptability will move you from point A to any other point, at least not for long.
Allow me to illustrate this point by sharing my own experience in therapy to get help with depression. When I began therapy, my therapist had me start off with some interpersonal mindfulness exercises, which is a time-limited approach to help treat mood disorders. He also taught me new ways to cope with ruminating (a cycle of negative thinking). After a few months, we both started seeing improvements; so far so good. But then, my therapist decided to push me further and add to my homework by introducing the psychological technique called “reframing.” This technique helps you change how you view situations, events, ideas, emotions, and the meaning you assign to them. An example of this could be taking this thought of “I need to please others in order for them to like me” and reframing the thought to say, “I need to remember to like myself and approve of myself so that I don’t need to rely on pleasing others for validation” We started with small and simple exercises, but I hated it. My body and mind cringed each time we tried to “reframe” a situation because my emotions and thoughts were so raw, and to think of them in any other way was not even imaginable. Eventually, I just flat-out said no, I'm not doing this. Without hesitation, he said, “Okay, that tool goes back in the box; let's try something else.” (Notice his adaptability!) And we continued on.
About a year into therapy, one day, my therapist said to me, “Let’s try reframing again.” I was unsure about this tool coming out again, but I had built up a relationship of trust (see point #1 above), so I said, “Okay.” We started with the same simple exercises, then moved on to progressively more challenging ones until I had reframed all that he asked me to do.
Was it a miracle that I could do that because I found a great therapist? Well, he certainly demonstrated several of the characteristics of a good therapist. But I think the key element was that I was willing to get to work myself, not just think that someone was going to magically “fix” my problems. In return for my hard work, my therapist gained a very effective client who was able to change. Which, of course, makes him look like he is a very effective therapist.
So, by all means, choose and evaluate your therapist using the 7 points listed above. But just don’t forget #8. You must bring your hard hat and lunch pail and break a sweat during therapy. You must be willing to do the hard work to make your therapist look like a miracle worker!