This is a fairly old thread, but I want to throw out some stuff I know about finding good therapists. There are many TYPES of therapy.There's process therapy, where a person engages in their emotions around something. Some therapists stomp you down if you cry or shout, which is unethical if you ask me. There's talk therapy, where you discuss things. Some therapists offer suggestions. I love my therp because he does that. Other therapists believe "you know the answer in your mind," and expect you to "discover" the solution for yourself. You'll be really lucky, imho, if you can get funding for in-depth art therapy or dream therapy. I had PTSD, and Jungian Art Therapy completely cured that. It's hard to find a good art therapist, and most of them only do little "fun projects" not deep therapy like I had. There's a CBT - cognitive behavioral therapy -- which I find very helpful BUT it's not the be-all and end-all for bipolar, that's for sure. A good way to get started on that is with Dr. David Burn's workbook book "Ten Days to Self Esteem." He has several books, but the workbook is the best. Start at the beginning and work your way through as far as you want to go. I insist that my therp and I come up with homework, and that he give me a "15 minutes left" announcement near the end of the hour. That's because often it's near the end of a session that the most useful, deep, and helpful ideas turn up. Also, sometimes it takes a while before heavy emotions come up, and I always want to COME OUT OF AN EMOTIONAL STATE BEFORE I LEAVE. When I first had therapy many years ago, I'd be in an emotional state, and a therap would announce out of the blue, "We're out of time." I still get angry when I think of t his bad therapy. The two most important things are: (1) How you feel abaout the therapist. Does s/he like you, and you can feel that? Do you like him/her? Do you trust each other? (2) You gotta see progress. Are you improving in the areas where you have problems? Are you getting stronger? Areas that helped me were getting "bully proof," and learning how to maintain reasonable boundaries on how I allow people to treat me. Learning to turn my back and walk away from rudeness or abuse. I'm working on how to deal with rude electronics. Electronics that neither work properly,nor have any customer support on the phone. That's my huge issue now. Electronics have taken over just about everything, we are dependent on them, they fail, and we have no recourse. I call them rude electronics, although of course it's not the equipment that's rude. It's the decision makers at the top of the companies who treat their buyers like dirt. When I was young in the 1950s, people bought products that lasted -- for more than a generation. We had fountain pens, and we had a "relationship" with our special pen -- ONE pen. When I was 8 I saw my first ball point pen, and was shocked that we were supposed to throw a pen away when it ran out of ink. Etc etc.