7 Reasons Why I Might Not Be the Therapist For You

Although it’s obviously important to find a therapist you connect well with, I think it’s also important to think about why some therapists might not be right for you. The relationship between therapist and client needs to work to increase the chances of therapy being effective, because the client is more likely to open up about what’s really going on, rather than what they think they “should” talk about.

In this post, I’ll highlight 7 reasons why I might not be the therapist for you. Although I’m specifically focusing on how I work and why that might not be right for everyone, the points I raise here are things to think about if you’re considering having therapy with any therapist, whether it’s me or someone else, so I hope you find it useful.

You don’t feel a connection with me

Perhaps you’ve come across my social media accounts for my practice, or you’ve found me through an online search or by word-of-mouth, and the content I share doesn’t resonate for you. That’s okay, I’m not the therapist for everyone, and not every potential client who’s looking for therapy is for me.

I believe that effective therapy is built on the foundation of strength of the relationship between a client and therapist, so if there’s no connection from the beginning, it’s likely to be difficult to nurture it. If your gut is telling you that there’s no sense of connection with me, I’m not the right therapist for you.

You’re looking for support for issues I don’t work with

Therapists have an ethical responsibility to “work within the limits of professional competence”. In other words, if we don’t have training and / or experience with a specific issue or client group, it’s usually in the client’s best interests for us to refer them on rather than trying to work with them. This is because there’s a risk that we could - unintentionally - do more harm than good for the client by taking on something outside our remit.

In my case, I’m not a Child and Young Person (CYP) therapist, so although I work with grown-up children every day, I don’t work with actual present-day children! I’m also not registered with OFSTED to work with adoption issues (this is the only specific issue in the realm of counselling and psychotherapy that is regulated; the other regulated areas are the protected titles for Arts, Music, Drama and Play therapists), so wouldn’t be the right therapist for this issue.

You want me to “fix” you

The idea of “fixing” you relies on the belief that you’re “broken”, which simply isn’t how I see people, even if it feels like you are. You may have gone through things that you believed weren’t survivable at the time, things that shattered your confidence, self-esteem and sense of self, and can’t see how growth and recovery might be possible.

I’m not saying that therapy is a magic pill that will erase all of the difficulties you’ve already faced, as well as those still to come, but it can help to heal the wounds that hurt, and give you the time and space to build new resources to thrive, not just survive. You’ve survived your worst days, and you don’t have to face the future alone, but you have to be able to take responsibility for your own healing. If you want me to do it for you, I’m not the therapist for you.

You’re not ready or willing to invest the time and energy into doing the work

Believe me when I say, therapy is often hard work for both therapist and client because it usually goes to unexplored depths in processes. Therapists are constantly tracking what happens in sessions, as well as making links to other things you’ve shared and the working hypotheses we’ve been formulating about how best to work with you. We’ll ask lots of questions, challenge you when you need it, and sit with you in the discomfort and the mess of being human.

And it’s not exactly a chilled out picnic if you’re the client either! You’re solely responsible for showing up and doing the work consistently - even on the days when you’d really rather not - to be able to see an improvement in your wellbeing. I can give you lots of insights into how humans work and why we do the weird shit we do, but it’s up to you to apply that knowledge to your own life. If you’re not ready to do the work, I’m not the therapist for you.

You only want tools and techniques to manage symptoms, without looking at what’s going on beneath them

To be clear, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to develop techniques and strategies to make it easier to manage an issue you’re struggling with in-and-of itself. In fact, this is often the first part of the initial grounding and stabilisation stage of therapy, and it’s hugely important to put these in place so that the client can begin to strengthen and add to their internal resources.

However, where I might not be the therapist for you is if you don’t want to go beneath the symptoms to explore why they’ve emerged. As with physical health issues, if the treatment is only tackling the presenting symptoms and not seeking to understand to why they’re occurring, it’s likely that the symptoms will keep coming back in future.

I don’t work in a “solution-focused” way, so I won’t set you tasks or homework, or get you to fill out a form to rate your feelings every week. Instead, I will seek to understand exactly what goes on for you in your relationship with yourself, others and the world. Together, we’ll identify patterns and work out ways for you to do differently. If this doesn’t sound like your sort of thing, I’m not the therapist for you.

You’re not prepared to own your shit

We all have our shit: the hideous moments in our pasts that fill us with shame, fear, grief and anger when we think about them. The experiences that irreversibly changed the trajectory of our lives, and shaped who we’ve become. We’ve all made choices we wish we hadn’t, even if they seemed like the right ones at the time. And our words, actions and behaviours have an impact on those around us as well as ourselves.

Therapy is amazing (and I can absolutely say that after almost 8 years of it!), but sometimes it’s also dark, painful and uncomfortable. You have to root around in the parts of yourself and your history that you’d rather ignore to be able to understand how it’s impacting your present, and to have the opportunity to build a different kind of future for yourself. If you’re not prepared to look at yourself and your shit, I’m not the therapist for you.

Practical reasons

It might seem obvious, but there may be very practical reasons why I’m not the right therapist for you. For example, although I do offer online sessions, I’m based in Hull, so if you specifically want face-to-face sessions but aren’t able to come to me, unfortunately that won’t work. My working hours are also fixed so that I can have a life outside my job, and I don’t offer late evening or any weekend sessions.

Another thing to consider is that when it comes to fees, I charge a higher rate than a lot of therapists, especially in the Hull & East Yorkshire area (£75.00+ at the time of writing, if you’re interested) and that might well be a dealbreaker for you before the start. I explain how therapists calculate their fees here if you’d like to know more.

I hope that this post has given you some useful things to consider about why I might not be the therapist for you. If you’re still interested in the possibility of working with me, feel free to get in touch and we can see if we’re a good fit. You can contact me: using the contact form below; via email to emma@emmapooleytherapy.com, or you can find me on Facebook and Instagram @emmapooleytherapy.