Central Health Clinic

There are two things to think about— chemistry and competence. Stud­ies show that the best predictor of good outcome in treatment is that the people involved in it like and respect each other and work well together. Don’t stay with a therapist you really don’t like as a test of your endurance or in the hope that resolving the problem with him will somehow make you a better person. Every therapeutic relationship will have its occasional ups and downs (which you are likely to be contributing to in ways that may be enlightening), but these must occur on a foundation of trust and engage­ment if they are to be weathered well. It is probably a good idea to interview several clinicians before picking the one you want to work with and to go with your gut in choosing among them.

Competence is much more difficult to determine. There is an ever­ growing array of different professional disciplines offering treatment for psychiatric problems. Competence varies widely both within and across disciplines. Many mental health clinicians are the best people our species is capable of producing—among the most competent and most caring of individuals. But there are also many well meaning but incompetent thera­pists, some outright charlatans, and even a fair share of the mean-spirited who have mistakenly wandered into the most helping of professions.