The Good Therapist
Steven B. Zwickel
January, 2023
It often seems that when people are having problems, well-meaning friends and relatives will suggest that they go see a therapist. This is good advice, but it is missing one key element—they should go see a GOOD therapist.
A good therapist is someone who can help you examine your situation and then decide if, and how you want to make changes. The good therapist sets realistic expectations so clients know what they are getting. Clear, and if possible, measurable goals and a reasonable timeframe should be discussed at the first therapy session.
A good therapist is not your friend. The therapist’s job is to speak the truth, always, even when it makes you unhappy and uncomfortable. They can be tactful and diplomatic, but they don’t try to sugar-coat things or give false reassurances that “everything’s going to be fine.” When necessary, especially when a client is in denial, the good therapist values fact over tact. The good therapist knows that clients may drop out of therapy when told they were part of the problem, or that their drinking was causing the problem, or that they couldn’t force other people to change.
In fact, the good therapist knows that change often comes from discomfort—you get up and put on a sweater when you feel chilly. Therapy sessions are for overcoming inertia and other obstacles to change, and that means feeling uncomfortable enough to want to make changes. The good therapist helps clients resolve their discomfort either by learning to adapt to it or by making changes in the way they cope with the thoughts, behaviors, and feelings that generate discomfort. Sometimes, the most productive sessions are the ones in which the client feels the most uncomfortable.
The good therapist is there to enable change. The good therapist doesn’t give clients a free pass because bad things have happened to them. Clients are held responsible for whatever their role was, however slight, in creating the problems that bring them into therapy. The therapist is not there to assign blame or to judge who is right and who is wrong. A good therapist listens and responds in ways that help clients get unstuck. He or she does not tell you what to do or put words in your mouth.
Good therapists don’t make optimistic predictions and they don’t, and shouldn’t, give hugs. Hugging and offering a client shoulder to cry on can create a dependency that defeats a major goal of all therapy—helping the client reach independence, so they no longer need a therapist. A good therapist may offer comforting words and encourage clients to identify and appreciate the positive parts of their lives.
The good therapist doesn’t do cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all therapy. Some therapists follow gurus—people who write books, give lectures, and promote a particular way of looking at, and solving, clients’ problems. The good therapist knows more ways than one to help and is not wedded to one method. The good therapist does not have an agenda. Therapy begins wherever the client is. {The good therapist stays current with trends in mental health, so he or she can discuss other options with clients}.
The good therapist does not have a need to be liked. The good therapist knows that sometimes it will be his or her job to deliver bad news.
Some problems have no solutions. Clients who want or expect other people to change are usually disappointed when the good therapist tells them they are being unrealistic.
The good therapist knows when it is time to terminate therapy.
