I voted "other." Of the five or six Ts I've seen, all but one were professionally recommended. The one I just picked out of my health insurance booklet was not someone I should have seen more than once, and she was female and a social worker.

My current T was recommended by the PhD psychologist who performed my psych eval, which is all he does. He gave me a list of PhD psychologists and social workers he said were professionally trained and certified and knew what they were doing. (I thought it was interesting that they were all male...) I went to the first PhD psychologist on the list, not expecting to really interview him; I didn't know him, but just thought this was going to be my T. And though he told me I could ask him anything I wanted to know, I asked one question: "How long have you been in practice?" (he's in private practice). He'd been in practice 36 years. That was it.

Looking back, what made me stick w/this T - and I doubt I could have found anyone better anywhere, esp. considering my issues - was his firm handshake when we met and the fact that he'd been in private practice 36 years, which told me that he not only enjoyed what he did, but that he was good enough not to have gotten sued out of the profession.

Some of the other Ts in the past that were professionally recommended were not as good as my current T, but they did me no harm.

I don't know that I would suggest my method of finding a T to actually interviewing people, but I'm old enough now to know that I can reasonably rely on my own "gut" feeling about Ts. Too, the psychologist who recommended my current T is a highly respected, reputable professional whose reputation I was familiar with. And since he had just done an eval on me, he had knowledge of who would best be able to deal with my particular problems.