How to find a therapist.
As I’ve said a million times by now, almost every parent to date that I’ve had as a guest on the Just A Mom podcast said they didn’t know what to do or who to call when their child had a mental health or substance abuse crisis. Because of that, I started incorporating more resources, mental health providers and experts on the podcast. I want to help educate parents so that they feel equipped if and when they need to get help for a child, and hopefully avoid getting to the point where it is a crisis.
I am so grateful to the mental health experts who have given so freely of their time and knowledge to help parents. One of these experts is Danna Dahl, Licensed Clinical Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor. I know Danna because she is our therapist. She was part of the team that helped save Will’s life and continues to help Will not to just survive but to thrive. Danna gave some tips on how to figure out what kind of care you need and how to find a qualified provider that I think are invaluable:
Psychiatrist—a psychiatrist is a medical doctor (MD) who can diagnose and prescribe medication. A psychiatric nurse practitioner can also prescribe medication.
Psychologist—trained specifically in testing. Depending on their training may also do counseling and provide clinical services but have specialized training to do things like intelligence testing, ADHD and learning disability testing
Social workers—have a lot of emphasis on social justice in their training. They do a lot of work helping their clients get the services they need.
Marriage and family therapists—focus a lot more on systems work, meaning looking at an individual client in the context of their family work, social and religious systems and how these systems impact the individual and vice versa
Professional counselor—a lot of emphasis on working with individuals but also do couple and family work; they can also focus on career counseling as well as professional development
Danna also emphasized that we need to be good consumers of mental health services. She compared it to surgery or purchasing a car. We need to do our homework—ask questions, give a clinician a try to see if they are a fit—she recommends three sessions to see if a therapist is a good fit.
Here are some websites to help you locate qualified professionals in your area:
Psychology Today (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists)
the Therapist Locator through the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (https://www.therapistlocator.net//)
the American Association for Christian Counselors (https://connect.aacc.net/?search_type=distance)
