15 Minute Consultation
November 10, 2023 5:39 PM Subscribe
I would like to find a therapist. Please help me make the most of the 15 minute initial consultation by ELI5.
My main concerns are:
Thank you. The process of finding a therapist is stressful and I can use the help.
My main concerns are:
- 15 minutes is not much time to make an assessment of suitability, as most of the time seems to go towards discussing logistics (insurance, schedules, etc.).
- I'd like to get help but I stopped going to therapy previously because each therapist ended up being a mediocre fit for my needs.
- A therapist who is a good fit is worth paying for. However, paying out of pocket for multiple sessions just to determine if a therapist is a good fit can add up fast and I’d like to increase the odds of ruling out a mediocre fit.
- What is the actual purpose of the 15 minute consultation? What is the correct way to approach these conversations?
- What information should I expect to be sharing?
- What questions should I be asking to assess whether a therapist is a good fit for me? Like actual sample questions?
- Are my expectations reasonable or are patients expected to drop hundreds of dollars for each therapist who might or might not work out (I'm in the US)?
Thank you. The process of finding a therapist is stressful and I can use the help.
Do you have a sense of why the previous therapists have not been a good fit? Were there concrete things that did not work for you or just a feeling? If the former, you can use that as a basis for your wish list, converting the negative qualities into the desired positive qualities. If it was a feeling, can you audit it and identify what the barrier was?
You will get the most out of the 15-minute conversation if you have a good sense of what your wants and needs are. For example, for me, I need a therapist who is an active interlocutor, but others may prefer a more silent therapist figure. So I have asked how much dialogue they feel is ideal in a session.
In the same vein, although studies show that all forms of talk therapy have more or less the same benefit/outcome, for me the therapeutic modality is important. When I have looked for a therapist and perused their online profiles, often they have listed their orientation as "eclectic" and named different therapeutic traditions and methods they draw from. In those cases I have tried to establish what their main focus is. I know that I would not do well with a therapist whose primary focus is cognitive-behavioral, rooted in spirituality, or art/drama therapy, even if they are willing to adapt their approach on a client-to-client basis.
In my case I also wanted to immediately put out there that one of the topics I needed to be able to discuss was something that could make a person (and therapists are people) potentially uncomfortable or activated depending on their personal history. So I have said "This is my situation, and I need to be able to talk about it in therapy. Do you feel that you would feel comfortable with it, and could create space for me to talk it through without judgment?" So if there are any reservations you have about any specific subjects you are looking to work on in therapy, you can bring them up right away and consider their reaction.
I have also always wanted to know what they see as indicators/benchmarks of "progress" -- that can offer a valuable insight into how they imagine the overall arc of the therapeutic relationship.
posted by virve at 7:01 PM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
You will get the most out of the 15-minute conversation if you have a good sense of what your wants and needs are. For example, for me, I need a therapist who is an active interlocutor, but others may prefer a more silent therapist figure. So I have asked how much dialogue they feel is ideal in a session.
In the same vein, although studies show that all forms of talk therapy have more or less the same benefit/outcome, for me the therapeutic modality is important. When I have looked for a therapist and perused their online profiles, often they have listed their orientation as "eclectic" and named different therapeutic traditions and methods they draw from. In those cases I have tried to establish what their main focus is. I know that I would not do well with a therapist whose primary focus is cognitive-behavioral, rooted in spirituality, or art/drama therapy, even if they are willing to adapt their approach on a client-to-client basis.
In my case I also wanted to immediately put out there that one of the topics I needed to be able to discuss was something that could make a person (and therapists are people) potentially uncomfortable or activated depending on their personal history. So I have said "This is my situation, and I need to be able to talk about it in therapy. Do you feel that you would feel comfortable with it, and could create space for me to talk it through without judgment?" So if there are any reservations you have about any specific subjects you are looking to work on in therapy, you can bring them up right away and consider their reaction.
I have also always wanted to know what they see as indicators/benchmarks of "progress" -- that can offer a valuable insight into how they imagine the overall arc of the therapeutic relationship.
posted by virve at 7:01 PM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
A friend found this (especially the infographic) helpful to prepare for her consultation call.
Some sample questions (can’t find the source again):
How would you help people with similar need?
How are you different from other therapists?
Who are people you WOULDN’T be a good fit for?
What is each session like?
Who will talk more? Me or you?
Do you give homework?
Do I have to talk about ______?
How will I know that therapy is working?
How often will we meet? What is your availability?
How long will therapy take for people with my needs?
Are sessions in-person or over video?
Have you had personal experience with this?
[if needed]
What are your political views?
As a person of color/LGBTQ person, why should I trust you?
posted by eyeball at 7:51 PM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Some sample questions (can’t find the source again):
How would you help people with similar need?
How are you different from other therapists?
Who are people you WOULDN’T be a good fit for?
What is each session like?
Who will talk more? Me or you?
Do you give homework?
Do I have to talk about ______?
How will I know that therapy is working?
How often will we meet? What is your availability?
How long will therapy take for people with my needs?
Are sessions in-person or over video?
Have you had personal experience with this?
[if needed]
What are your political views?
As a person of color/LGBTQ person, why should I trust you?
posted by eyeball at 7:51 PM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
You know how when you meet someone for the first time and you have a sense about whether you like/want to see that person again, usually within 2 or 3 minutes?
IMO, being attuned to those first impressions would be the best use of those 15 minutes, especially since you've already done the preliminary filtering work.
Is there something about them that intrigues you? Do they seem to have the right kind of sense of humor, if that's important to you? Do you like the questions they ask you? Is their office furniture interesting? I had a friend whose therapist said something like "we're going to have to fill out some stupid paperwork" and we both loved that the therapist was themselves enough to take the risk of referring to the paperwork as "stupid" during the first session.
I'd suggest you look to those kind of incidental moments that strike you, as opposed to looking for some substantive data.
BTW, you're not asking this but be mindful that there are many reasons that someone can decide to quit therapy. It could be that there's a bad fit, as you say. Or it could be that you and the therapist are starting to do deeper work and you can feel yourself touching up against something scary and are starting to feel that flight/fight response. I'd suggest you tell the therapist when you feel like quitting and see if there's something significant coming up that you can explore.
Best of luck to you! I agree - finding a therapist is hard.
posted by jasper411 at 9:54 PM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
IMO, being attuned to those first impressions would be the best use of those 15 minutes, especially since you've already done the preliminary filtering work.
Is there something about them that intrigues you? Do they seem to have the right kind of sense of humor, if that's important to you? Do you like the questions they ask you? Is their office furniture interesting? I had a friend whose therapist said something like "we're going to have to fill out some stupid paperwork" and we both loved that the therapist was themselves enough to take the risk of referring to the paperwork as "stupid" during the first session.
I'd suggest you look to those kind of incidental moments that strike you, as opposed to looking for some substantive data.
BTW, you're not asking this but be mindful that there are many reasons that someone can decide to quit therapy. It could be that there's a bad fit, as you say. Or it could be that you and the therapist are starting to do deeper work and you can feel yourself touching up against something scary and are starting to feel that flight/fight response. I'd suggest you tell the therapist when you feel like quitting and see if there's something significant coming up that you can explore.
Best of luck to you! I agree - finding a therapist is hard.
posted by jasper411 at 9:54 PM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
What is the actual purpose of the 15 minute consultation?
Therapist here. My bias in answering this is: I don't do them. I don't think they're worthwhile and frankly--I don't work for free. After a brief period of doing them and finding them an awkward amount of time in which to do anything, I had a clinical consultant point out to me that, despite the fact that people have come to expect them now, I didn't have to do them. So instead, when I get an inquiry, I email people back and let them know that I find an initial 50-minute session a good way to start to get a feel for whether it will be a good fit. If I'm answering "what's the point of them?" I think I'd go with "the main point of them is that everyone does them and they've become an expectation."
The thing is, consult call or no, there is, yes, some possibility you'll have a few sessions and find it's not a match. There's not a workaround, in my view. It's a unique set of circumstances in which you are paying someone for an interpersonal relationship, and figuring out if that is working is not an instantaneous thing. There are people who have really specific weed-out questions like "do you do EMDR?" that can be answered in a brief consultation. From what you've said, you do the weeding out by means of reading profiles, and that makes sense. But it also obviates the point of a consultation call.
Grain of salt: I am the outlier here. A lot of people seem to value the 15-minute call.
posted by less-of-course at 8:07 AM on November 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Therapist here. My bias in answering this is: I don't do them. I don't think they're worthwhile and frankly--I don't work for free. After a brief period of doing them and finding them an awkward amount of time in which to do anything, I had a clinical consultant point out to me that, despite the fact that people have come to expect them now, I didn't have to do them. So instead, when I get an inquiry, I email people back and let them know that I find an initial 50-minute session a good way to start to get a feel for whether it will be a good fit. If I'm answering "what's the point of them?" I think I'd go with "the main point of them is that everyone does them and they've become an expectation."
The thing is, consult call or no, there is, yes, some possibility you'll have a few sessions and find it's not a match. There's not a workaround, in my view. It's a unique set of circumstances in which you are paying someone for an interpersonal relationship, and figuring out if that is working is not an instantaneous thing. There are people who have really specific weed-out questions like "do you do EMDR?" that can be answered in a brief consultation. From what you've said, you do the weeding out by means of reading profiles, and that makes sense. But it also obviates the point of a consultation call.
Grain of salt: I am the outlier here. A lot of people seem to value the 15-minute call.
posted by less-of-course at 8:07 AM on November 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm a therapist too. I've never even heard of these 15-minute consultations! I'd never do them. I'm with less-of-course. Therapy's a relationship; it doesn't work by checklist.
posted by DMelanogaster at 9:10 PM on November 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by DMelanogaster at 9:10 PM on November 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
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