Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

  • Home
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
    • About
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Contact

October 13, 2016 By Admin

How to Find an Effective Therapist

How to Find & Choose an Effective Therapist

Recently The Harvard Health Newsletter posted some interesting questions to ask while seeking out a psychotherapist. I will add a few more details and areas of inquiry in this post. Keep in mind that these questions and inquiries do not anthonyquintiliani_mindfulhappinessmean you will be happy and improve with a therapist you selected via these suggestions.  However, it will mean that you have completed a reasonable investigation as to the proper fit for you, the therapist, the therapy, and the area/s you seek help for.  Safety, comfort, and hope are important variables in outcomes. The key area related to positive outcomes are the quality of the therapeutic alliance, the actual skill of the therapist, the match among various variables (therapist style, interpersonal qualities, type of problem/s, and your personal/emotional preferences). So let us begin to review your search process.

  1. Expertise is the key factor in successful outcomes. So questions about level and types of clinical training, specialty certifications, degree/s, length of clinical work experience, types of therapies offered, prior formal complaints or law suits, and word-of-mouth reputation and/or formal investigative search regarding clinical quality of the person you are
    considering. If the therapist becomes annoyed or impatient with you in this process, you may not want this person as your therapist. Therapy requires a great deal of personal honesty regarding your true (inner) self and your false (outer) self. Both are real!  If you feel you cannot open up deeply with the therapist, perhaps this is not the right person for you.
  2. Expectations for good outcomes may involve questions about pros/cons regarding the type of therapy offered to you, how that therapy mindfulhappiness_anthony-quintilianiworks concretely, and outcome expectations given your particular clinical needs.
  3. The alliance quality is a very important variable in effective therapy.  Skilled therapist know how to use certain psychodynamic methods to form a strong and positive therapeutic alliance.  If after a few sessions you are not feeling the power and emotional comfort of that alliance, it is time to discuss this with the therapist. And although psychodynamics of the alliance are essential for success, psychodynamic therapy alone may not be the answer.
  4. Does it work?  You will want the therapist’s opinion as to how long it may take before you experience some improvements.  As in medicine, this is not an exact science.  A very important variable is HOW the therapist will know you are improving.  Ask: How will you measure my progress? Likewise, you will want to discuss how you will know actual change is happening in the therapy.  Beware of therapist who make you feel very good in the session but over time there is no real improvement in your condition. Improvement must be measured and documented!
  5. Cost is very important.  Be sure to ask about fees, co-pays, “no-show” billings, if the therapist takes your insurance (if you have insurance).  What happens if you do not have health insurance?  Make sure your insurance covers the treatment and the person providing the treatment. mindfulhappiness_anthonyquintilianiIn today’s health care marketplace, where for-profit insurance companies exist, you need to be very clear on financial expectations and realities.
    Remember some medical and psychological providers refuse to accept medicaid and medicare.  They claim it fails to pay adequately.  Sometimes this is true, and sometimes the provider is simply too greedy.
  6. Failed treatment is not as uncommon as people think, especially if your clinical condition involves the norm of co-occurring disorders (alcohol/drug AND other mental health issues) or if the condition is very serious in complexity (serious attachment problems, serious chemical dependency, serious trauma, serious co-occurring medical problems, etc.). If after two or three months of weekly session (more or less) you are not experiencing some positive changes, it is time to re-visit the choice of treatment and/or the therapist. Discuss your impressions with the therapist.
  7. Medications may be needed to support improvement in your clinical condition/s. However, remember that effective medications may improve personal emotional experiences, but they cannot effectively deal with past patterns of behavior/habits (self-medication, anger, isolation, etc.) and skills deficits that may have resulted in the clinical condition you suffer from. So the best model is biopsychosocial-spiritual NOT purely biological.mindfulhappiness_anthony_quintiliani
  8. Spirituality can be an important variable in your improvement and recovery .  If you are a spiritual person, ask if your therapist feel comfortable and skills enough to support you in this area.
  9. Lastly, some therapist spend all of their time trying to fix a problem.  In the reality of clinical practice, exaggerated documentation requirements,  and low clinical payment rates this often makes sense. However, there are two ways to look at clinical problems: one way is to fix something that is not functioning well; another way is to improve the quantity and quality of positive life experience – even personal happiness. In the end, combinations of both approaches often work best. There are only 24 hours in a day; so reducing suffering and expanding joy may be part of the recovery picture.
  10. I wish you great luck and good fortune in selecting your personal therapist.  This person may become one of the most significant people in your life. Select her/him very carefully!

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

ChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Featured, Therapist Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, THERAPIST

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

Consciousness, Emptiness, and Well Being This is an advanced post on the complex relationship among consciousness (awareness), emptiness, and well being. Readers with advanced understanding of Buddhist Psychology will recognize the inherent relationships among consciousness, emptiness, and well being and interactions with core Buddhist concepts and experiences such as happiness and suffering, impermanence, non-dual nature, […]

Supervision and Self-Care in Trauma Therapy Today there  is an ever-increasing demand for effective trauma therapy.  Our American clinical history on this matter leaves much to be desired. John N. Briere and Cheryl B. Lanktree offer important suggestions on how to use clinical supervision and self-care in your clinical work with clients suffering from serious […]

Taoist Meditation on Healing Colors of Light In Taoist views the four seasons (five if you include “Indian Summer”) are strongly associated with emotional moods and bodily energies. Healing colored light is also part of this viewpoint. For each of the colors we use, follow the process noted below. Sit quietly and breathe calmly. Circle […]

Trauma Therapy:  Basics from Some Expert Clinicians For many years trauma therapist have used many approaches in their psychotherapy. Most of these approaches lack strong empirical support for outcomes, and are often the “favorites” of these therapists.  One might wonder what benefits therapists derive from using approaches that are not evidence-based. If an intervention fails […]

Failure and Success: After We Fail, We Succeed Humans tend to get very discouraged when things do not go our way. This may be especially true for younger people, who have grown up attached to their instant gratification digital devices. Below I will list several highly successful people, but I will also note their many […]

Inner Workings of Self-Medication Process   To continue our discussion about the self-medication process we will first turn to the human brain.  The human brain is the most complex system known to science.  Here, my comments will be basic.  Self-medication often has roots in the quality of our earliest childhood experiences (attachment and object relations with […]

Chronic Pain and Doing Body Scanning Although doing body scans cannot fully relieve your pain, it may help you manage it better. If your pain is serious and chronic you need to work with a qualified pain management professional, who will use both psychological and medical interventions. Note that a recent issue of Consumer Reports reviewed […]

A Radical Feminist in her Time Over 800 years ago Hildegard of Bingen presented radical viewpoints on women-power and male-dominance in the Christian Church, stone/gem healing, meditation, insight and intellect, the web of life or planetary oneness, being in nature, environmentalism, and personal stories of suffering, etc.  Despite her outspoken manner and her popularity among […]

Tibetan Tantric Meditation on Selflessness Mahamudra meditations tend to unify emptiness and bliss, and represent many core principles of Tibetan Buddhism. Nagarjuna’s text on The Middle Way played an important and influential role in these practices. Selflessness of persons and selflessness of phenomena are highly represented in noted meditation practices. Therefore,, this can be considered […]

Mindfulness Can Activate More Grace in Our Lives Today we all need to be cultivating more and deeper grace.  Grace needs to be activated. Given so many of our cultural problems (murders and mass murders by gunfire, rampant personal and corporate greed, ego-entitlement, chronic stress, feelings of insecurity, technological advances that do not ADVANCE us, […]

Yoga Nidra and Your Inner Peace Yoga Nidra will allow you to relax like you may never have relaxed before.  Follow these modified instructions for your best relaxed state.  If at any time during Yoga Nidra you feel uncomfortable, simply stop and breathe in a manner that restores equilibrium.  Although this uncomfortable outcome is highly […]

Helper Self-Care is Important In the most current issue of The National Psychologist (July-August, 2019) an article linked helper effectiveness, risk management, and clinical outcomes to helper self-care. To make a long story shorter, I will simply paraphrase and re-word the suggestions.  These recommendations support YOUR emotional survival and successful risk management as a helper as […]

Vipassana for Depression, Anxiety, Trauma, and Addictions The integration of Vipassana meditation with various forms of therapy has for many years been a standard of treatment worldwide and in Vermont, especially when impulse control and emotion regulations issues are included.  Buddhist Psychology offers clear explanations why this intervention may be helpful for so many suffering […]

Happiness Path  – The 14th Dalai Lama His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama has suggested, among many other important things, that humans may experience true inner happiness by regular practice on the path to enlightenment. In his 2012 book, From Here to Enlightenment, he noted that personal happiness may be attained via specific behaviors and ways of […]

Psychodynamics of Alliance – Therapeutic Relationship Enhancement This post includes basic considerations, processes, and clinical skills necessary for developing a strongly positive clinical alliance and therapeutic relationship in therapy.  Here the alliance is required for any substantial change in psychotherapy, and the therapeutic relationship rides the quality of the initial alliance to expand and inter-penetrate […]

Buddhist Thought on Joy and Suffering 1) You actually DO have some control over your emotional destiny. 2) The core “conceptual” view of reality is that your inner emotional experience – especially negative afflictive emotional states related to people, places and things you REACT to – are perceived as totally true. 3) In a non-conceptual […]

“The Other Shore” to Happiness and Enlightenment Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, The Other Shore: A New Translation of The Heart Sutra…Berkeley, CA: Palm Leaves Press brings us on an inner journey toward a happier, more peaceful and enlightened life. Wisdom implies that we understand that life is made up of mental formations, no-self (more clarifications later), […]

Emptiness – Meditation Practice The Brahma-Viharas (higher abodes) include four powerful meditation practices ( Loving Kindness/Maitri or Metta; Compassion/Karuna; Sympathetic Joy/Mudita; and, Equanimity/Upekkha) that involve boundless radiation outwardly all the way into the infinite universe. These boundless or infinite space meditations, working with deep absorption and projecting kindness outwardly, may lead to positive changes. Experienced […]

Review:  Deepak Chopra’s Idea’s on ” The Future of God” Part 2 of 3 In part 2 of this 3-part series, I will discuss the role played by consciousness in various levels of spirituality.  In the beginning, there was the word.  The word is sometimes associated with pure consciousness, since without consciousness there cannot be […]

Advanced Meditation Practices on Perception As the Sutra story goes, the Buddha instructed Ananda to visit the ailing venerable Girimananda, who was very, very ill.  In an effort to help the ailing man, the Buddha told Ananda to guide him in the Ten Meditation on Perceptions (on sensory input and the objects of mind). According […]

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Site Map

Copyright © 2023 · Mindful Happiness