Your psychotherapy will be more effective if you pay attention when choosing a specialist: 1. Education and the category of clients the psychologist works with: for example, children, adults, addicts, people with mental disorders. It happens that friends recommend a psychologist, saying he helped them, but your problem may be completely different. A good psychologist knows his limitations on client categories and topics and does not work with everyone, but it would not be superfluous to clarify whether this is the right place for you. Specialization is confirmed by certificates, etc. Don’t hesitate to ask “Where can I see your supporting documents?” 2. Now the OPPL (the largest professional community of psychologists and psychotherapists in the Russian-speaking space) has adopted a 4-part model for training specialists: • Special education; • Personal therapy; • Supervision; • OLT (educational personal therapy). I have already written about education above, and personal therapy, supervision and OLT are supportive, expanding, resource-filling spaces for specialists in helping professions, improving professional knowledge, skills and abilities. And you, as clients, have the right to know whether your therapist undergoes regular supervision, whether he has personal therapy. Has an OLT certificate - excellent! These positions are even more important than education (especially basic education. It simply should be, but this does not make you a good psychologist. Our profession is a craft, learned from masters in direct contact). Another important point that will allow, in fact, your therapy will happen. This is feedback to the therapist about what is happening to you in the process of work. Often the desire to be a good client does not allow you to tell your therapist about your internal state, about your feelings that arise towards the therapist or, directly, the process. For example, anger, anger, resentment, desire to please, and others. These are important points for analysis and elaboration; they significantly advance therapy. Therapy (especially long-term) is a relationship and everything happens in it. Don’t be afraid to hurt or say something unpleasant (in an acceptable form, of course). The therapist will handle it. Should be able to, at least)) Pay attention if you want to idealize the therapist. And talk too. If you want to interrupt therapy, be sure to say it in advance and take several sessions to complete it, where you can talk about the reasons, get recommendations and, most importantly, take credit for the results and new experience from your work. Otherwise, after some time you will inevitably want to devalue everything and a rollback will occur. I invite you to individual or couples therapy. For colleagues - Educational Personal Therapy. OPPL Certificate.