I wish I had clearer guidance when looking for a therapist a few decades ago. If you search online today, you will find endless checklists detailing how to check professional registers or definitions of various clinical modalities. But the reality of finding the right practitioner is far less about administrative matching and far more about relational safety.
Often, I explain to potential clients what the modality I am trained in actually means (and more importantly, what it does not mean). In the person-centred approach, the client is their own expert. My job is to walk alongside whichever experience the client brings to the session, acting as a grounded mirror. In time, I gently reflect back the inconsistencies or edges of their own narrative, allowing them to uncover those profound truths for themselves. It is challenging to relay a true and accurate reflection of the content of sessions because they are so fiercely, unapologetically individual.
An excellent supervisor told me very early on in my career: ‘It does not matter what modality the counselling is structured in; the main thing is the therapeutic alliance’ (that is the relationship between the client and the counsellor). There must be a mutual feeling of safety and authenticity that allows the vital, complex material to surface, enabling it to be discussed without the haunting fear of judgment.
For anyone in the process of looking for a new counsellor, I recommend evaluating at least three practitioners and taking them up on a 15-minute introductory call. These take time, but it is so important to get an accurate sense of what it will be like sitting opposite that person. It often comes as a surprise to clients – especially those looking for absolute assurance or a life manual – that person-centred counsellors operate first and foremost as human beings, rather than the detached authorities they expected.
When a prospective client asks, “Do you have experience with…?” it is easy for a clinician to give a resounding, “Yes, of course.” However, I usually follow that with, “But I do not have experience with your specific version of it.” Every lived experience is completely unique. In the case of neurodivergent clients, LGBTQIA+ individuals, or clients from different cultural backgrounds, a therapist possessing a nuanced toolkit of the lived experience of difference is a real operational advantage.
One of my worst experiences as a client occurred when I had to continuously over-explain my job and translate my lifestyle, only to be met with condescending comments about the low tone of my voice (‘Maybe that is why people do not understand you’). Had I known what to look for and shopped around, this particular therapist would never have made it onto any final shortlist.
Lazy choices of language, or phrasing that sounds copied and pasted directly from an academic textbook, are major red flags. Specifically, phrases like “doing empathy” or “walking in your shoes” in relation to the person-centred approach are structural failures. It is a persistent issue amongst therapists where traditionally trained clinicians assume that because they have studied diversity or run workshops, they automatically ‘understand’ the marginalised experience. They treat empathy as a clinical skill they have mastered and can deploy at will, rather than an ongoing, messy, relational process.
To step into textbook territory for a moment: Carl Rogers, who developed the concept of person-centred therapy, explicitly stated that the therapist must perceive the client’s internal frame of reference “as if” it were their own, but without ever losing that “as if” quality. The distinction makes or breaks the outcome. Extending empathy is a state of being in the room: it is NOT a transactional task.
This is exactly why I actively invite clients, once a safe space has been established, to challenge me. What are the misunderstandings? When did I get it wrong, and how does that relate to the ways the rest of the world gets it wrong?
If a client does not feel comfortable with me during the initial check-in, I fully support their need to look elsewhere. If I come across as judgmental, too nervous, too scattered, or display any human characteristic that dysregulates them, it will be immensely difficult to build on that foundation. The priority must always be finding a therapist who feels safe to talk to from the very first minute.