I Chose a Therapist Because He Was Smiling

I once partly chose a therapist because he was smiling in his photograph.

I had done the sensible part first. I knew what qualifications and therapeutic training I wanted, did my research, and narrowed down my search to two therapists who both seemed to fit. Then I reached the point of, Right. Now what?

One had his own website, so I could read more about how he worked and find out a little more about him. The other gave me considerably less to go on: a directory profile and one very serious professional photograph. Not unfriendly. Just the sort of expression that made me imagine him saying, Good afternoon. We’ll be removing your left kidney today.

And I thought, well, I know more about the other one, he looks approachable, and he’s smiling. Yep. Let’s go with him. This is how psychotherapy begins.

What can you actually know from a profile?

You might eventually tell this person things you have barely told anyone else, become attached to them, cry with them or disagree with them. And at the beginning you might have a few paragraphs and a photograph and be thinking, Hmm. This one?

So I made my choice and started therapy.

And, as it turned out, we did some good work together. But over time I realised it wasn’t the best fit for what I needed, and I decided to end the therapeutic relationship. Which meant I was looking for a therapist again.

And I remembered the therapist I had passed over before. The serious-looking therapist. Well, why not? Let’s see.

Five minutes with the actual person

Within about five minutes of meeting him, he had his feet up on the seat of his chair. And I thought, Oh...Interesting.

He was lively, funny and warm, and his personality was just there. Almost immediately, I felt at ease with him. This was not the person I had invented from the photograph. Where was THIS guy in the photo?

There was something about how easy he was to read that surprised me. Not a deep sense of safety, because I had only just met him, but I didn’t feel I had to work very hard to figure him out. His personality was simply there. I wasn’t sitting there wondering what was happening behind a professional therapist face. And somehow, that gave me more permission to show up as myself too.

Which made the contrast with the person I had imagined from the photograph even more striking. I had apparently constructed quite a lot of personality from one serious facial expression, and five minutes with the actual human being completely dismantled it.

Obviously qualifications, training and therapeutic approach matter. But relational fit is much harder to research. You cannot really know from a photograph how it will feel to sit with someone.

And although I had thought I was back at square one, I wasn’t really. By then I knew much more about what I needed from therapy, and the first therapeutic relationship had helped me learn some of it.

I passed someone over partly because he looked incredibly serious in one photograph. Then I actually met him and within five minutes he had his feet on his chair. So much for the kidney surgeon.

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