Also not typically my experience but it is definitely an issue (not just in therapy—see it in multiple professions). I found my Ts and Pdocs (that I chose to work with long-term) to be largely pretty grounded: family people, flawed human beings just like we all are. But supportive and consistent. I ran into a few along the way that I only saw a few times because they were not good matches for what I needed, but I didn’t give them enough time to care.

I wasn’t one to keep seeing someone who I didn’t trust/like/respect. Didn’t have the time, and when I did start paying definitely didn’t have the money to waste. I’m pretty picky that way. I think all the years of working to find truly good specialists for my husband’s medical condition made me very impatient with incompetence and very weirdly skilled (is it a skill or just careful diligence—not sure) at honing in on the right person for the job. Get burned once or twice and you become really focused on finding the right fit and avoiding the turkeys.

I did totally “luck out” with my pdoc. The first time I was hospitalized I was randomly assigned to him. He offered to take me on as a private client after my discharge—something he doesn’t routinely do. He was a kind person—very soft-spoken and kind—so I stuck with him. He ended up being fantastic. Good thing because I had no idea otherwise where to start in wading through the list of providers on my insurance. Sometimes things just work out well. That was one of those times.

Not every therapist is good. Not every good therapist, even, is necessarily the right therapist for a person. Not every person needs therapy. And when we do, it can be difficult to find the right fit. All I knew was not to stay with the ones that didn’t feel right for me (and I got that sense pretty quickly).