During a time of increasing specialization in health care, many psychotherapists have unfortunately been attracted to eclecticism—that is, knowing a reasonable amount about a number of different forms of therapy, but resisting specialization in any one of them. For some individuals, especially people interested in wide-spectrum growth and personal development, an eclectic therapist can be very beneficial. Eclectic therapists believe that they are able to bring a wider scope of understanding to bear on a problem and a more flexible outlook. If you have fairly well-defined needs and interests, however, eclecticism makes it difficult to locate a therapist who has formal training and extensive experience specifically in treating, for example, depression, alcoholism, family conflicts, or adjustment problems. No therapist today can be an expert in the whole range of human emotional problems and in the many specialized techniques that have been developed to help.
REFERRALS
There are a number of ways of going about locating a therapist. You can start by asking for a recommendation from any of these sources:
* your family doctor, who will most likely suggest a colleague, another M.D., a psychiatrist
* your minister, priest, or rabbi, who again will suggest someone he or she happens to know or to have heard of
* personal friends
* referral services
All of these alternatives are, however, limited by the scope of acquaintance of the person or service you have gone to. Referral services commonly are run by groups of subscribing psychologists (or social workers), so if you call one, you will be referred to a participating psychologist (or social worker). Sometimes referral services (which usually charge nothing for their referrals, unless you request a preliminary consultation) maintain a listing of the areas of specialization of their professional members, and this information can be helpful.
If you have a specific approach to therapy in mind and want to find a therapist with strong credentials in that approach, there are two usually more promising roads to follow:
BY MAIL, OR E-MAIL (GOOGLE ANY OF THE
NAMES OF ORGANIZATIONS THAT FOLLOW):