Is My Therapist a Match?

Do you get me? Feeling understood is key to successful therapy.

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A relationship with your therapist is unlike other relationships, so how can you tell if your therapist is a keeper? How do you assess the “goodness of fit” early on? Given it’s so critical for finding a good therapist, this post shares why it matters, and specific questions you can use to assess success.

Your relationship with your therapist is probably unusual

If your close friend said things like…

• I’d like to meet once a week for an hour (but really 50 minutes).
• I won't say hi to you if I see you in public, but you can say hi to me.
• Sorry, I can’t come to you ever—it’s my office or Zoom.
• Do you think this is about “your mom”?

... you’d understandably want to create some distance. In therapy, this is standard.

Your therapist is not your friend, your family, nor your love. Yet still they could be among the most important and personal relationships in your life.

The relationship is unique even compared to other key healing relationships. For example, you might have a great relationship with your primary care doctor. But if they were sick on the day of your appointment and you saw another doctor in their practice, you’d probably manage. On the other hand, if you arrived at your therapist’s office and found a substitute in their place, the experience might fall anywhere highly disconcerting, to downright alarming.

“Fit” matters

The connection you feel with your therapist isn’t just nice to have, it’s also one of the most reliable predictors of success in therapy.

If your mechanic doesn’t seem to “get you,” but does their job well, it’s not much of an issue. For your therapist, the way they interact with you, and the way you interact with each other, is a central part of the work.

Research finds the importance of strong alliance holds true regardless of the therapist’s style or the length of treatment. Goodness of fit remains predictive of success regardless of why you are seeing your therapist or what you are experiencing—from dissociative disorder to chronic depression, to issues with work/life balance, and more.

But what does “fit” actually mean?

Given the relationship is so unusual, you may not have a sense of what a match is supposed to look like or feel like.

If you are searching for a therapist, how do you know when it’s right? If something feels off with your current therapist, how do you verbalize what that is? How do you know whether it’s the inevitable discomfort that arises with delving deep, or if perhaps it’s just not the match for you?

Three good signs your therapist is a keeper

Trusting your gut is important. But what if decades of research into what makes a strong therapeutic alliance could also help you know what to look for? These key factors are adapted from the Working Alliance Inventory, a widely used assessment in research and practice.

You agree on your goals

It might sound obvious that goals should be set collaboratively, but if you’ve ever worked with someone who didn’t seem to understand what you wanted, you know how important it is to call this out. Change is hard, and the work is much easier to sustain when you are working towards goals that matter to you. You want your therapist’s input and guidance—they have years of training and likely many thousands of hours of experience. But it’s also critical that you are the expert in yourself, and have choice in how you heal and grow.

Some questions to ask yourself:

• Do my therapist and I agree upon desired outcomes?
• Does my therapist understand what I want to achieve?
• Does my therapist help me articulate what it is I want?

The work you do in session feels valuable and effective

There are many styles of therapy and it’s important that you feel that how you spend the time in session is helpful. Not every session will blow your mind, but overall it’s important that you can sense the value. Again, this may sound obvious, but I’ve met too many people who see therapists weekly for years without knowing exactly what they are gaining or aiming for. The work in therapy isn’t linear, and plateaus happen. But being and feeling included in the plan is a very good sign.

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Some questions to ask yourself to assess this:

• Do my therapist and I have a shared understanding of what actions are most important for me?
• Do I think we are working towards my goals in a way that is effective?
• Am I gaining new perspectives on my issues?

You feel accepted and respected

As humanist psychologist Carl Rogers famously said, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

The same holds true in therapy. Although you go to therapy in order to change something, the curious paradox is that this happens more easily when you feel your therapist accepts and appreciates you, especially as you may struggle to accept yourself.

From this perspective, it’s not about changing who you are at your core, it’s about uncovering the gold within, removing blockers, and giving space for positive change to unfold. How you do this can vary, from learning new tools, to taking medication, to changing your lifestyle habits, to rewiring your attachment patterns. Respect, and what Rogers called "unconditional positive regard," can be part of any approach.

In my 15-plus years in the field, I don’t know anyone who changed because someone finally convinced them there was something inherently wrong with them.

Some questions to ask yourself to assess this:

• Do I feel my therapist likes me?
• Do my therapist and I respect each other?
• Do I feel my therapist appreciates me?

What’s next?

If you feel a great connection with your therapist, that’s fantastic. If you don’t, you have options. Remember, therapists have many years of training on having sensitive conversations. You can feel free to raise concerns—I’ll break down how to do this in a future post. You can also choose to continue with someone else. Another unique aspect of the therapeutic relationship, compared to other close relationships, is that it really is about you.

To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.