Help, no one is calling me back! Finding a therapist
Rachel Sykes I Work with Stressed Out Professional Women | Licensed in Massachusetts
Looking for a therapist
Help! No one is calling me back
Rachel C. Sykes, LMHC, LLC
Rachel@rachelcsykes.com
rachelcsykes.com
Looking for a therapist?
Are you looking for a therapist? It is not easy to know where to start. Okay, I just did this myself-it’s considered good practice for therapists to be in therapy, too, you know. I have also helped a bunch of friends and family in their search for support. It was waayyy harder than it should have been. A lot of therapists don’t even respond, they have 6-month wait lists. And I work in this field, so I probably know more than your average therapy-seeker. Here are some common questions:
Why is nobody calling me back? I have heard this A LOT. There are lots of reasons here but a few big ones: a lot of people are looking, therapist burnout, and poor business skills. Maybe you are finally ready to start your therapy journey. You made it through the lockdown but it has left an emotional mark. Sadly, you are in good company. The increase in the number of people seeking help and in the severity of their concerns has placed a lot of pressure on a poorly designed (completely un-designed?) system. Therapists have been feeling the pressure, too! I don’t want to generalize too much here but many therapists have burned out themselves and have stopped taking new clients or have actually left the field altogether.
Plus, as much as I hate to make excuses, many therapists are not as keen on the business aspects of being a therapy business. Is it cool to not return calls and emails? Absolutely not. But it seems to happen a lot. Maybe the therapist is actually “full”, meaning they cannot take on any new clients but they haven’t remembered to communicate this on their website or on their professional online profiles.
HINT:
Please make sure your voicemail is working. I get that, sometimes, you are having a tough time keeping on top of things. However, I have had been unable to reach clients/prospective clients because their voicemail box was full and the client did not provide their email. ☹.
Should I use my health insurance?
If you have coverage that pays for you to see a good therapist, then why not? If you go through insurance, you might be able to find someone by using the insurer’s provider search tool on their website. Hopefully, that means the therapist takes your insurance. But please confirm! Also, most people have co-pays of varying amounts, so you may have to put aside some $$$ in your budgeting (because I know you all budget- hahaha).
Some therapy seekers are concerned about the stigma of having a mental health disorder in their medical record. I am not trying promote this view, as there are probably a lot of benefits to having accurate medical records but it is a common enough concern.
Why would I not use my insurance?
If you are having trouble finding a therapist that is open to taking new clients, it may be worth checking to see if you have “out-of-network” benefits. This means that you would pay for the appointment in full at the time of your appointment but that you could submit the expense to your insurance company for at least partial reimbursement. Depending on your insurance benefits, this might actually cost about the same as when you use health insurance (think copays). It really depends on the specifics of your insurance plan. You may need to meet a deductible before these benefits kick in and your plan may only pay you back for a percentage of the cost. Call your insurance company. Confirm with your new therapist once you find one. Big “if” here - IF, of course, you are lucky enough to have health insurance. With “behavioral health benefits”, otherwise known as coverage for mental health counseling/therapy.
If you go this route, you may have greater access to therapists in your area. Full disclosure: I do not take insurance myself but can help clients who have this kind of insurance coverage submit their out-of-network claims for reimbursement. Check out my site to see if I am currently open to new clients in Massachusetts.
What kind of therapist should I be looking for? Okay, this is just my humble opinion. I think the most helpful thing is whether you feel comfortable discussing difficult, personal subjects. That’s hard to google. Do they have public listings, a website? Look them up and see what you think. Do they work with people that sound like you? Do they seem like they “get you”? Do they offer in-person sessions, tele-health? I offer a limited number of “walk and talk” sessions and I know a few other people that do the same.
Definitely make sure that they are properly licensed and otherwise legit. You can look online at your state’s licensing board to see if they have any ethical/legal issues going on. I would search on the name of your state (I am in Massachusetts) and include terms like “licensing board”, “ethical violations”, and “disciplinary actions”. It takes some slogging to find this info and each state does things in their own special way but it’s out there.
Does it matter what their specialty or modality is? Specialty?
Yes, important. If I were seeking support for trauma, I would definitely look for someone who specializes in trauma (also called PTSD); if I wanted couples, grief, or career counseling, I would want someone who is trained, has experience, and likes doing this work. Get it?
Modality… ummm, maybe? Again, this is my own personal opinion, but I think that it matters less what type of therapist they are (cognitive behavioral, psychodynamic, humanistic, etc.) and more that the client feels comfortable and that they can trust them. Using boring therapist lingo, this relationship is sometimes called “the therapeutic alliance”. I think counseling modality/theory is really interesting (I am a proud nerd) and I even taught it in grad school for a little while but I don’t think my clients really care. Might it help me as a therapist, yes! Do my clients know/care? Probably not. (BTW, I am not the only one with this view – see references below if you want to read some research-y articles or books on this subject.)
Help me more – any recommendations?
I mentioned that you may be able to find a provider by looking on your insurance company’s website and using their provider search tools. If you have insurance. If you have insurance that covers therapy, or “behavioral health”, as they call it.
You can search online using key terms but you probably don’t need my help to do that. There are also a number of really comprehensive search tools to find a therapist. For some (most?) of them, the therapist has to pay a fee to be listed but there are some sites that don’t charge, which is pretty cool for us therapists. I have listed some of them in alphabetical order. There are definitely more such tools but hey, I am trying to help and don’t promise to be perfectly comprehensive. Also, I am not making a specific recommendation here but these are ones I know about.
Find-A-Therapist
Good Therapy
Inclusive Therapists
Mental Health Match
Network Therapy
Neurodivergent Therapists
Open Path Collective
Psychologist Locator (American Psychology Association)
Psychology Today
Therapy Den
Therapy for Black Girls
Therapy for Black Men
Therapy for Latinx
Therapy Tribe
Theravive
Zencare
Personal referrals
You could also ask a trusted friend or family member, your primary care doctor, or maybe a therapist that you know socially. I get asked for referrals by friends, friends of friends, and relative strangers pretty often. Often these people are asking to work with me but there are good reasons for not being a therapist for friends (idea: maybe I will blog about this sometime!). Sometimes it is because I specialize in helping stressed out professional women and the person is not a good fit for my work. If you are okay with opening up to your peeps, a personal recommendation can be a great way to find a therapist.
Just do it
Treat it like any other serious task. Start sending emails and/or making phone calls. I keep a running list so that when I bitch about how no one calls me back, I can support it with numbers. See what you think after a few visits. Do you think you can trust them and tell them private stuff? Do you like the way they run the session? Do they appear to be a good listener? If the answer is no, then just say “no”. It’s not your job to manage your therapist’s feelings. I try to clarify up front with my clients what their obligations and my obligations are. I only ask my clients to show up for their appointments and make good on their financial commitments. This is, after all, my job and I think it is fair to be able to pay my bills.
Contact me
Are you interested in seeing if I may be the right therapist for you?* I suggest you check out my website to see if you are picking up what I am putting down. You can request an appointment or call/email to ask for a free 15-minute consultation.
email: Rachel@rachelcsykes.com
phone: 617.804.6471
* I am licensed to work in Massachusetts.
References
Del Re AC, Flückiger C, Horvath AO, et al. Therapist effects in the therapeutic alliance-outcome relationship: a restricted-maximum likelihood meta-analysis. Clin Psychol Rev. 2012;32:642–9. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22922705/
Neukrug, Edward S., "Counseling Theory and Practice (2nd Edition)" (2017).
Wampold BE, Budge SL. The 2011 Leona Tyler Award address: the relationship − and its relationship to the common and specific factors of psychotherapy. Couns Psychol. 2012;40:601–23.
Help! No one is calling me back - Looking for a therapist https://www.rachelcsykes.com/post/help-no-one-is-calling-me-back-looking-for-a-therapist