What Happens When You’re Not Vibing With Your Therapist

By: Lujuana Milton, Owner and Clinician

So you’ve decided to come therapy.  Maybe it’s for the first time, you’ve taken a hiatus, or you need to find a new therapist.  You’ve had your first or a few sessions and for whatever reason you are not feeling it. You are just not vibing with your therapist.  Maybe it’s his tone of voice, what she wore, or his approach was not what you were looking for. Well all those feelings or observations are pretty natural.  We are humans that have feelings about who and what we encounter daily and based on those feelings we are either going to go all in or not. The bad news is that when it comes to therapy, not going all in pretty much defeats the purpose.  Rapport and relationship are such an important aspect of therapy. There is even research that suggest that success in therapy is related to the relationship one has with their therapist. 
So we’ve established that the relationship with your therapist is important to your success and achievement of your goals in therapy, but what happens when you feel like the relationship with your current therapist is not helping you.  If this is the case, then I would suggest you speaking to your therapist. Be honest and don’t ghost us; I promise it won’t hurt our feelings. We recognize that our personalities or approaches may not be for everyone. We also trained to tailor our approaches to each individual and when we receive feedback from others we are better able to tailor our approaches to meet yours other people’s needs.  
Now what happens when that conversation doesn’t work? Or maybe you just really don’t want to work with that particular therapist.  That’s okay too! Again, it won’t offend us so don’t up and leave with no phone call. We want you to achieve your goals, even it isn’t with us specifically.  Tell us what you are looking for with regards to a therapist, your goals, and why it isn’t working. We can help you find another therapist that would be a good fit for you.  You see, as therapists we know other therapists. We know all kinds of therapists with different backgrounds and expertises and we can help you find the right therapist for you.  It can be daunting just scrolling through a sea of professional profiles to find a therapist that you think might be a good fit. And I don’t know about you, but when I was looking for my own therapists I read through profiles pretty quickly and make my judgement based on whether the therapist has a warm presence or a nice smile in their photo.  While I have happened upon some really great therapists this way, it is not the most reliable of methods. I would have much rather gotten a personal recommendation from another therapist who knows and/or has worked with that therapist. 
I can’t stress enough that as therapists we won’t be offended and most definitely shouldn’t get upset that it is not working for you.  Our goals is to assist you in anyway we can so if you are feeling that you are not really vibing with your therapist work with them to find the best solution for you.  All it takes is a conversation about it.