[annielovesbacon]

When my T and I terminated last May, she gave me the name of another therapist she thought I would like. I googled her (as one does ) and found her linked in profile. I made a linked in account so that I could view her reviews and whatnot, then decided to hold off on therapy with a new T until I was ready.
Yesterday I decided I was ready to go back to therapy and was ABOUT TO make an appointment with this T who had been recommended to me. But first I got a random urge to check linked in, and I had a notification that the new/potential T had checked out my profile!! ...Which means that she must have received a notification when I checked out her profile!
Now I am nervous. I didn't make the appointment. I feel pretty sure she would recognize my name and know I googled her! I am very anxious about that. Do you guys think it's weird?

TLDR a potential therapist knows I googled her and creeped on her linked in and now I am afraid to schedule an appointment with her!

What you did is a perfectly normal thing to do. You are looking for a trained professional so you checked the publicly available information about her professional life. It's a very reasonable thing to want to make sure that the person you might entrust with some of your most personal stuff is actually qualified, and to try to find out a little more about them, perhaps even see a picture beforehand. I get students looking at my LinkedIn profile from time to time - not that they can choose a teacher, like we can choose a therapist, but some of them still look there. I find nothing remotely creepy or weird about that.

Wow, relax. She probably checked out your profile because she received a notification that you checked out hers. That's what profiles and notifications are for, right?

[Merecat]

Yeah, that's absolutely fine - LinkedIn in a professional site and you were looking for a professional. If you wanted to get it out of the way you could mention that you looked at her profile to see if you thought you'd be a good fit, but I think she'll know that's what you were doing.

[Chummy2]

It's not weird for a client to look at a (future) T's LinkedIn. My current T has a link to her LinkedIn page on her website. I think it's a good idea to check it out. You can see what experiences she has and if you think she could be a good fit for you.

[LonesomeTonight]

I agree that it's not weird and that she shouldn't be bothered by it. I looked up my (now former) p-doc on LinkedIn before seeing her the first time (and looked for T and marriage counselor, but I don't think they're on there--both have really common names though). As others have said, it's a professional site, and it's meant for others to learn about your professional qualifications. I'd go ahead and make an appointment.

I get random LinkedIn requests all the time from people I don't know. Sometimes I click on them to see if I'm just not remembering someone I should be remembering. I don't spend much time looking at them and I honestly couldn't tell you the names of the people I've done that for because it happens fairly regularly. My guess is this therapist won't even remember having looked at it much less your name.

[Pennster]

I think it's totally normal to research a therapist before you call them. I would assume most therapists would expect that you might, and that's one of the reasons for having a LinkedIn profile in the first place. (It sounds like maybe you don't use LinkedIn much? People check out professional acquaintances all the time on it. If you use it a bit you don't give it a second thought when you see someone has looked up your profile.)

I read my therapist's book before I saw him, and I told him I had done that. He seemed to think it was a totally normal thing to do.