How to choose a psychologist? Today, it seems that in the market for psychological services, supply exceeds demand. You go, for example, to the b17 website, and there are several thousand specialists there, and how can you not get confused? While still a student of psychoanalysis, I was looking for a personal therapist. How difficult it is, but I knew exactly what paradigm I wanted to work in, I knew the gender and age of the analyst, I knew how to determine the “quality” of a specialist by education and membership in psychoanalytic organizations. What about the average person who simply feels bad, but there are 4,000 psychologists and each one is better than the previous one? Over the years of work and personal therapy, I have understood, it seems to me, a very important thing: the most important thing is the personality of the therapist, her quality, her experience. Education and work experience are important insofar as they are included in the life experience of the therapist. Age and reviews? Well, while participating in supervision groups where there were very young specialists with no experience and seasoned 50-year-old gurus, I saw cases where the younger ones gave much better results, many times over. What should the client do? Talk. Talk about which requests are most interesting for a specialist to work with. A healthy specialist, for whom the client’s result is more important than earnings (let my colleagues throw slippers at me here, but psychology is creativity first and foremost, earnings are secondary) will answer honestly about his priorities. After all, we are all different. For example, I am interested in long-term psychoanalytic work on developing personal potential and I tell all my clients about this. I am very interested in working with borderline and psychotic conditions. Yes, we can resolve the request quickly or even very quickly, in several sessions. But will the result be long-term? If you have a request, for example, “I’m on the verge of divorce and can’t make up my mind,” ask how the specialist feels about divorce, has he or she ever had a divorce in his or her life? Colleagues will say that this is not important...Important. Or it contradicts the ban on self-disclosure of a specialist. Well, test your sincerity! After all, any experience of psychotherapy is the experience of a relationship based primarily on sincerity on both sides. Go for it! And I hope you can find your therapist. You know, it’s like being in the mountains or at the sea - unforgettable happiness, after which you will no longer be the same!