293 - Should You Go To Therapy? Pt. 2
Therapeutic considerations
There’s more to choosing a therapist than just finding one in your insurance network. And aside from finding a therapist, there are some other things to consider when seeking therapy:
Couples therapy: It’s possible that couples therapy might make you or your partner worry about the therapist “siding” with one of you. Although relationship and marital therapists are trained to be attuned to different communication styles and are skillful at working with couples and different genders. In some cases, if the client(s) are still worried, however, there are co-therapy teams that may make everyone more comfortable.
Race: Although most or all therapists are trained in working with diverse people, sometimes it’s helpful to seek out a therapist of the same race who can better understand your cultural upbringing and background. Additionally, if you were/are the victim of abuse or discrimination, it can be important to have a therapist who does not have a similar background to your abuser.
Religion: There are some religious and/or spiritual focused forms of therapy, so if religion is an important aspect of your life, seeking religious counseling can be a positive form of therapy. Religious counselors use religious texts and teachings in conjunction with things like prayer, which is what makes them different from traditional therapists.
LGBTQ: Not all therapists will be familiar with or supportive of LGBTQ people, so finding one who is well-versed in the LGBTQ community can be vital. Unsurprisingly, if a therapist has a religious objection to you or your sexual orientation/gender identity, that’s not someone with whom you would want to work.
Consensual Non-monogamy: For those of us who are polyamorous, it’s crucial to find a therapist or counselor who has worked with other non-monogamous couples/people before, or at the very least, is not morally opposed to the idea and is open to learning about it. Some therapists may have preconceived notions about consensual non-monogamy and it’s possible they may see it as a root cause of issues.
Choosing a therapist
The bottom line is: you and your therapist need to like each other. You also need to have good communication and a willingness to work together:
Check our list of considerations and ask yourself if you have any to add. When finding therapists, look at their bios and see if anything there resonates with you.
Sometimes you may not have preferences regarding who you speak to, so some online sites and apps have questionnaires about your background and what you want to work on and will give you a list of people to go to from there.
Therapist credentials may not matter to you, but there are protected terms that one can only use with the right training/education (therapist, psychiatrist, social worker, etc.) and others that aren’t protected, such as coach, counselor, and life coach. If you’re seeking therapy for something specific, it can be helpful to ask if they have experience with that specific issue.
Make a list of questions to ask, for example:
Do you have an expertise or specialty?
What is the cost per session?
Do you prescribe medication or can you refer me to someone who can?
Will my therapy with you be long or short term?
What training have you received and do you continue to research and learn new treatment approaches?
How do you help your patients get comfortable with therapy and with you as a therapist?
Nontraditional therapy
There are some apps and programs for those who either can’t go to traditional therapy for whatever reason or who might prefer a more easy-to-use option that doesn’t cost as much.
Talkspace: $65-$99 a week.
Better Help: $40-$70 a week.
Larkr: $85 a session.
ReGain: $40-$70 a week.
Teen Counseling: $40-$70 a week.
Additionally, some non-monogamy friendly places to start looking for therapy are:
The Polyamory-Friendly Professionals Directory: https://www.polyfriendly.org.
The Kink Aware Professionals Directory (KAP): https://www.ncsfreedom.org.
The Open List: Openingup.net/open-list.
The Polyamory Loving More Member Professionals List: https://www.lovingmorenonprofit.org.
The “Meet our Experts” section of The Affirmative Couch: https://affirmativecouch.com.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're continuing our conversation about therapy. What's it all about? Should you be doing it? Probably. We all probably should sometimes.
Last week we talked about some of the common obstacles like why it's hard to get yourself to go to therapy even if you think it might be helpful as well as the huge variety of different types of therapy that there can be. Today, we're going to continue on talking about some things to consider when trying to choose a therapist as well as how to go about choosing a therapist, what that process looks like. Then we're going to talk about some resources and things like that that can help you find either more affordable online therapy or therapists who are comfortable with your lifestyle or your sexual preferences or your sexual proclivities, sounds dirty when I say that.
Dedeker: Jeez, Jase, your sexual proclivities will always be going to be relevant .
Jase: Right. If they are though, if that's what you want to talk to a therapist about, then they should know what the heck they're talking about.
Emily: Not have some big obstacle in the way like, oh, I believe in that or I think that you're a deviant or whatever, so we'll go into those types of things.
Jase: Clearly, your problem is that you like to be slapped, let's talk about that. You're like, no, no, no, no. I want to talk about my communication with my partner not about that.
Emily: Yes, exactly. It's been a week since I had a bit of a time on the episode, a short, small cry fest that I eventually dealt with. It definitely stuck with me the rest of that evening after we had finished the episode, after we had finished recording and I still haven't pulled the trigger yet on finding a therapist. We'll see what happens after I get through this episode this week but I feel like I'm inching closer to feeling at least better about it and more excited to try and to go.
Dedeker: Well, if there's anything that I think we maybe touched on last week, I'm sure you're by far not the only person out there who feels that way and also emotionally feeling that way about these particular-- not even just excuses but also just attitudes handed down to us as well as just straight up obstacles they can get between us and getting the help that we need. I'm sure you're not the only one who feels that emotionally fraught about it.
Emily: Now, I doubt it but I am interested to hear more from our patreons and our listeners about this once the episodes finally come out. Definitely looking forward to that. What are we going to talk about today?
Dedeker: We're going to start out in talking about just special considerations to think about when choosing a therapist. We're going to start with broad strokes and then we're going to get a little bit more specific and more granular and more detailed as the episode goes on. I will say just to preface this that this is a lot of the stuff that I wished that I had thought about when I was first choosing a therapist. Choosing a therapist that I wanted to be with for relatively long-term. There's a lot of these things I really didn't think about. I think I also came to the process feeling like I don't get to choose necessarily or I don't get to be picky or I don't get to advocate for myself in that way.
Jase: You do.
Dedeker: You do, but I think you do is the thing. I think that that's a holdover from our assumptions around therapy being this magical process where the therapist or counselor has all the power and all the knowledge and if they're good at their job, the therapy happens before you even realize what happened.
Jase: . They're like tricking you into getting better is always how my impression of therapy before doing it was that. That there's some mastermind pulling these puppet strings then tricking you into getting over your shit and it's generally not how it works.
Dedeker: As well as that power dynamic as well. That I think that leaves a lot of us feeling like as the client or as the patient that we can't be like, hey, actually, that thing that you're suggesting that I do really isn't working for me or actually I feel like I'm really lacking X, Y, and Z in our work together. It took me a long time to realize that I could--
Emily: Have you done that before in any therapy that you've done?
Dedeker: With my current therapist and also with my trauma therapist, I didn't really have an experience of like, oh, I feel like I'm locking this thing and telling them that it was more that I got better at being like, hey, I need some concrete advice here or, hey, I need to hear from you that you've also experienced this. I need to hear from you that I'm not crazy.
I think I've gotten better at just more asking proactively for what I need. I will say that on the opposite side of that in my work with clients, when clients are clear in that way, it's super helpful, honestly. I think being on the other side of it helped me feel a little bit more empowered to just more specifically ask like, hey, actually, can we talk about this instead of that? Can we try this instead of this? Can I get this from you and so on and so forth.
Emily: That makes a lot of sense. Very unique position of being able to be on both sides of the table to a degree. I know that a lot of therapists or a lot of people who work with others go to therapy for their entire lives. That makes sense. There's probably less of a stigma surrounding it because you're like, this is literally my work. I'm not going to stigmatize it.
Dedeker: I will say my trauma therapist and I ended up talking about this for a long time that he said, he's saying because he also in his work works a lot with people who are therapists or counselors. That there's not quite a stigma but there's definitely this big cultural weight that I think has been handed to a lot of therapists to fill that role of being the person who knows everything and has all the power in the room and can magically do therapy. It's like that assumption doesn't just affect the client. It also affects therapist.
There's also a fair amount of shame underlying these feelings of am I being a good enough therapist or how can I be helping people when I have my own shit that I haven't worked out yet? There's a lot of that. That's maybe a different conversation for a different show or maybe even a different podcast altogether but that is definitely something. I guess the whole point of this is that counselors or coaches or therapists or other healing professionals are human as well and we're all on this journey together.
Jase: We'll talk about this a little bit more later about the client and therapist relationship and what that ideally will look like but it is essentially a team effort. That you both-- there's a certain amount of trust and collaboration going on there and it's not only you telling them what to do and it's not only them telling you what to do. There's ideally teamwork going on there. Do you want to dive into some considerations when choosing a therapy?
Emily: Let's do it.
Jase: First thing on our list that we want to talk about here is couples therapy. If that's something that you're thinking about, maybe we should go to couples therapy. A few things to consider here. First off is that if that's something you want to do, it's very likely that one of the two of you can be anxious that the therapist is going to side with your partner and it's going to be like this two on one. It's like, "Okay, I'm already having to fight and now I'm going to get ganged up on." That sounds horrible. That can bring up a lot of resistance to that.
Something to be aware of though, is that marital therapists are attuned to the different communication styles and are generally skilled at working with couples. Often the trainings are specifically focused on heterosexual cisgender couples, but as we'll talk about later, if you find therapists who have more experience working with couples like yours, whether that couple actually is three people or whether that's a same-sex couple or a transgender or something like that.
Having a therapist who gets that helps but I think it's important to realize that the therapist's job, if they're any good at all, is to make it so that everyone's heard. The therapist's job is not at all like you see in TV shows where they're sitting on the side of one person questioning the husband and making him challenge everything about his beliefs or whatever. I feel like I've seen that trope a lot.
Dedeker: Something that you can consider, I don't see a lot of places doing this, but if you really are concerned about a therapist potentially siding with one side of the other, there are some places that will offer a co-therapy team in which--
Emily: Interesting. I had no idea.
Dedeker: I know. You can have two therapists working along with you. Sometimes if for instance, for heterosexual couples, they'll offer a male and female therapist together so that everyone can feel as arbitrarily as secure as possible that no one's going to side with one or the other. This does sound a little bit silly, but the Gottman Institute, relatively recently, like within the last couple of years or so, based on their research, they did start a marathon therapy program that you can apply for, essentially.
Emily: Why do you call it a marathon?
Dedeker: Because instead of it being, I think the traditional scheduling with marital therapy is, we'll meet once a week or maybe twice a week towards the beginning and then switched to once a week. Where instead they do, you're going to come to therapy for six consecutive days and it's going to be six hours every single day. We're just going to really get into the mud there and do it bootcamp style. I'm really, really curious about it. I feel like--
Emily: It sounds like many thousands of dollars to do.
Dedeker: I'm pretty sure it is. Well, I mean, you're essentially paying all that upfront. You probably spend a couple of thousand dollars over the full course of marital therapy and so it's instead of paying all that upfront and then just doing this. I'm very curious about it. If anybody out there who's listening has experienced some kind of marathon therapy, we'd love to hear from you. I'm not in a place right now where with either of my relationships, it feels so dire we need to go to marathon therapy, but I want to try it just purely for the sake of curiosity.
Jase: I love the idea of it because when I think it like the typical problem that can happen with couples therapy is it's we go and we have these good conversations in therapy and then the very next morning we're back to our old habits and patterns. I like the idea of you're doing it for that long every day for a week that it's like you're kind of really retraining how we do this and not giving yourself time to keep falling back into the previous habits.
Emily: That's really cool.
Jase: It's really interesting. I'm curious.
Dedeker: They did find in their research that the most effective scheduling for therapy to avoid relapse was what they call it massing and fading, which is front-loading more frequent therapy sessions at the beginning and then slowly fading out with less and less frequent therapy sessions but they decided to try this marathon therapy thing as like an extreme version of that, of if we really mass then really fade after that.
Emily: Then you're done.
Dedeker: That's great.
Jase: That's really interesting. I could see that being helpful.
Dedeker: Yes, but with couples therapy-- again, something to think about is that there are times when it's not the best choice to go to couples therapy. This is something that I didn't know for a long time and really had to rewrite my assumptions around this but for instance, if there's abuse going on in the relationship and that's not just physical abuse but it could be emotional abuse, verbal abuse.
If there's like an abusive cycle going on, that going into couples therapy could actually make it worse and I've definitely witnessed it many times where instead of it really fixing the problems, the person who is abusive just gets better at abusing because then they get armed with a therapeutic language and they know how to still manipulate and control but in a way that's more gentle or even to the therapist looks more gentle, things like that.
Also, if there's instances where if one or both people are struggling with a severe addiction, for instance or a very severe untreated mental illness, in those cases, it's probably better to think about getting into individual therapy first before considering couples therapy so keep that in mind. Again, with the abuse dynamic thing, sometimes it can be hard to tell when you're in it if that's what's going on or if it's just a toxic or dysfunctional dynamic. If in doubt also good to go to individual therapy first and maybe run it by your therapist.
Emily: Now we're going to talk about another consideration which is gender. For some people, it might be easier to be with the same gender therapist as you are because maybe you feel like, I don't know, they can relate better to you. Maybe it's easier for you to be with someone of a different gender because then you can gain a new perspective. I know personally, I have some who were abused by their fathers and their therapists are women because they don't want to-- that's triggering to them in various ways.
That's a consideration to think about. Something may be easier for you if you are with someone who understands where you're coming from, so that's one of those considerations that you might have to look at.
Dedeker: Along with that, some people also really like to consider race when they're choosing a therapist. We can definitely find therapists that are well-trained in being anti-racist or working with anti-racist models but it may be important for you to work with somebody who specifically understand your own racial background and racial trauma or if you have an immigrant background and want somebody who understands that.
Again, if part of you going to therapy is also working through times that you've been marginalized or the victim of abuse or discrimination, it may be vital for you to work with somebody who has a background similar to you or to avoid working with somebody who has a background similar to the person that abused you or discriminated against you.
Jase: Then going along with finding different ways to relate to your therapist, religion can come up for a lot of people and this can come up both in the sense of, let's say that you are religious, like Christian, for example or you're Jewish that you might want to find a therapist who has that same religion as you because for you, you find working within that religion to be helpful for you. For other people, it might be essential to find a therapist who's not religious because if they try to pull that religious bullshit on you, you're just going to storm right out or it's just not going to be helpful or it's going to be a disconnect between the two of you.
I would even take this further from just institutionalized religions like that to also being even just like how spiritually they are versus how just cold hard facts they are. That finding a good match for you can be helpful if you're someone who's like, "No, I just want the cold hard facts. Let's get my brain-computer working." Versus if you're someone who does get more benefit out of thinking about your energy or spirits of things, stuff like that.
Again, what really matters is that you can communicate well with each other and we're going to get to that more later but that teamwork between the two of you, so that's something else to consider.
Emily: I've found out there are actual religious faith-based counseling that is out there and that means more that they're going to use things like religious texts and teachings and maybe even prayer in conjunction with more traditional therapy models. If that's something that you're excited about, then that's something that you can maybe look for. Otherwise, there are reasons to also want to steer clear of that so that's something to look at.
Dedeker: There's also therapists now that specialize in religious PTSD so that's also a thing.
Emily: Yes. Many considerations from that standpoint. Okay. LGBTQ therapists or people who have worked within the LGBTQ community, that's definitely a strong consideration for many people that they are understanding of what you are going through and what you have gone through as an LGBTQ person. Again, if there is someone who is very religious who is a therapist who has an objection to who you are, then that's definitely something to take a look at and to not choose that person as a therapist.
Dedeker: Of course, if you're in some non-traditional relationship, in a non-monogamous relationship, polyamorous relationship, it is essential that you find someone who either has worked with other non-monogamous people or is at least comfortable working with and affirming non-monogamous relationships.
Of course, I think that many of you out there can certainly share some sad and mad stories about trying to find a therapist that's understanding or affirming of that. We're at a time of shift where we are just now starting to see there being, for instance, professional trainings. Dr. Eli Sheff, is right now launching a brand new professional training specifically for therapists to become more well versed in styles of non-monogamy and how to work with them, because--
Jase: Right, and Ruby Bouie Johnson does similar workshops for therapists to learn.
Dedeker: Yes, because a lot of people out there including therapists and counselors, have preconceived judgments about non-monogamy and some internal biases that see consensual non-monogamy as inherently not as solid as monogamy, that it could be a root cause or symptom of an unhappy relationship or could even claim pathologize that claim that because you want non-monogamy or you're in a non-monogamous relationship, that means there's something messed up about your attachment style, things like that. Something that I want to say, to tie all these different areas of consideration together.
Of course, there's definitely more that we haven't covered like dealing with disability or social class or things like that. I think it's interesting for you as a person to just think about how important is it to me that my therapist is knowledgeable and friendly and accepting of these things or these parts of my identity versus how important is it to me that my therapist has personal lived experience with these things? Neither of those are right or wrong necessarily, but I think it does come down to who you are as a client-
Emily: It's very personal.
Dedeker: -and what could be most helpful for you. Yes, exactly. You may feel like, it's okay if my therapist doesn't have my same religious background necessarily, but it is important to me that they actually share my experience as a queer person. My therapist identifying as queer themselves is actually really important to me. That's okay. You can definitely go and look for that. For some people, it may be the opposite. That's just something to think about with all of this.
Jase: Along with that, like Dedeker shared in the previous episode, that going to one particular therapist or doing one particular type of therapy might not be the right one at a certain time, but it might be right for you later. Something else to consider here is that you're not committed to this one therapist for life. That say, right now you're trying to work on something that has to do with your disability or has to do with your sexual preference, find a therapist who really gets that and ideally specializes in it. Then later, if you're like, actually, now it's more about my spiritual identity so I'm going to find someone who focuses more on that and specializes more in that.
This can change at different times as well. Then, also, just real quick, with the idea of sharing your experience or not, like Dedeker mentioned before, you can ask your therapist or your counselor or your coach or whoever it is, if it's like what I need right now is to know is this normal? Do other people go through this and having someone who specializes in it, they're just going to have way more breadth of experience of, yes, this is something that all gay men go through or yes, this is something that non-monogamous people go through. All my friends and partners have gone through it, like we all get it. That's something that can be really helpful.
Dedeker: This is also something I will say that there's a long history with therapy and counseling in the way that therapists and counselors are trained to really, really discourage anything remotely resembling self-disclosure. Going all the way back to Freud and the early versions of psychoanalysis. The image was that the therapist is they're just supposed to be a mirror, a blank mirror. They literally just reflect back, I think that's why we get that trope of like, okay, but how do you feel about that? Okay, you said this, how do you feel about that? The therapist is supposed to function as not even a human being in the room, they're just a mirror.
At least what I'm seeing, especially as I do more professional training, I'm seeing the narrative around that starting to shift a little bit toward encouraging therapists and counselors to do a little bit more self-disclosure within reason, if it feels safe and if it feels appropriate. There's always going to have to be a little bit of professional distance there. I think that we're going to start to see that laying a foundation for the therapeutic relationship.
Emily: That's so interesting.
Dedeker: I learned that the hard way. Yes, it is interesting, huh?
Emily: When I think of myself that empathy you have been through the same experience or a similar experience as I have is really incredible in my relationships with other people. In my mind, I've always thought that would be absent and this would be a different type of relationship, which, clearly, it would be a different relationship than one that I have with, say the two of you, for example. Maybe empathy would be added in a little bit more understanding of like, hey, I've also been through something similar. I like that idea.
Jase: This is a good segue into our next section, which is now about not just these larger external situations, but also just looking to now when you're actually talking to different therapists, starting to engage with them and figure out which one might be right for you. The first thing here is something that's referred to either as the therapeutic relationship or the therapeutic alliance or I think there's some other names like the working alliance or the helping alliance.
Basically, this is a term for that idea that the therapist and the client need to like one another a certain amount and get along well so that there is this good freedom of communication and a willingness to work with one another. The American Psychological Association published a report in 2014 that said, "The therapy relationship makes substantial and consistent contributions to psychotherapy outcome independent of the specific type of treatment. The therapy relationship accounts for why clients improve or fail to improve, at least as much as the particular treatment method."
Emily: That's really interesting.
Jase: Less than, more than the modality you choose, what matters is that you find a therapist that you're able to have a good relationship with.
Emily: I have heard of some of my friends who've been to therapy that their therapists do actually say, like, hey, I think we need to stop seeing each other and you need to find someone else, which is very interesting. I'm like, "Why would that happen?" If the two of you don't get along and if you're not progressing, then yes, it's impressive and probably good for a therapist to say, hey, I see that this is not working, we need to try something else, or you need to try something else here.
Now look back on our list of considerations and if you have any of your own that we didn't discuss and check out therapists, check out their bios, because you might be able to glean some nuggets of information about them, see if there's anyone who speaks to you if there's people who you think you can relate to. You might not have any preferences regarding who you want to speak to. That's also okay.
There are online sites and apps that we're going to be talking about a little bit later. They do give you things like questionnaires and they ask you about your background and they ask you if there are things that you would like to work on, and then they give you a few different people to choose from and you can go from there. Again, I'm not speaking from experience, but just from my research. Have the two of you done that? I know Dedeker you've done some apps and, Jase, I think so too.
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: Yes. You will be speaking from experience eventually, Emily.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: I've gone through the process of trying to find a therapist a couple times now we've been on the hunt. I will say this part of the process, it does take time and energy so I don't want to diminish that. That's another obstacle, is you can finally be like, okay, I'm ready, I'm ready to go, I'm ready to find somebody and then you can be overwhelmed by the amount of choice or the lack of choice, depending on where you are and even just the whole process of sending messages and stuff like that. As a rule of thumb, when you're starting to hunt.
I made the mistake early on of just finding, oh, yes, I hear there's this one therapist, they seem perfect. Great, I'm going to send him a message and that's the only therapist I'm going to reach out to. I try to make a list of three to five people that I'm going to message initially, because, all the time, they're just like, oh, we're not accepting clients or sometimes people just don't get their contact form emails from their website, which is baffling to me but it does happen. I always encourage people to get yourself at least a little bit of buffer in reaching out to at least three to five different people at first and seeing what their response is.
Emily: That's the thing I didn't know either is that you have to write someone and reach out to them. I just figured I would called my insurance company and try to find someone and that would be it. Both of you have talked about writing the therapists. I'm like, "I have to write a little letter. What?"
Dedeker: That's a whole other thing also is that trying to find a therapist that takes your insurance. That's a whole other thing. Then you can start with at your insurance website, often they'll have a search function for finding providers. You can start there and then look at people's websites individually, send the messages and stuff like that.
Jase: I have found that generally all of the insurance sites, at least that I've ever used will pretty much just let you search by geographic location and it just gives you their names. You have to then open up separate tabs and copy those in and try to search them on Yelp or various doctor reviewing sites or try to find their bio. That doesn't make it easy. It is a project. Do give yourself some time and realize like, okay, maybe take some notes, put together a little document that you can paste the different bios into or whatever it is. Make it easier on yourself by realizing it's going to involve some paperwork, digital paperwork on your end.
Dedeker: Don't make the mistake that I've made a couple of times in the past which is waiting until I'm at a point of desperation and I need to talk to somebody and . I've got to jump through 600 hoops before I can actually talk to somebody. Just bear that in mind and give yourself the gift of that time, ahead of time, if you can.
Other things to look at when you're searching for therapists either through, like your insurance website or through Psychology Today or stuff like that. Of course, there's a lot of letters behind people's names. In our bonus episode for last episode, we went more in detail about what all those letters might mean, how to tell the difference between them. Just in broad strokes know that a psychiatrist, they'll have what, like an MD next to their name or what a psy- a psy- a psyduck? .
Emily: The MD is a psychiatrist but then a psychologist is something else which is a PsyD.
Jase: Or a doctor of philosophy of psychology.
Dedeker: You can tell we're experts at this. Don't take our word for it. Go out there and Google. If there's letters next to the name of somebody and you don't know what they are, Google it. There's pretty reliable resources out there. In broad strokes, someone who's a psychiatrist has their doctoral degree. They're someone who can actually prescribe medication for you.
There's an LMFT like a marriage and family therapist or an LCSW, a licensed social worker or an LPC like a counselor. Those are terms that are generally protected. There's other terms or labels that are not protected. Like what are the stuff we've seen floating around like a somatic sexologist or a life coach relationship coach, bodyworker, energy worker or therapeutic energy worker, things like that. These are terms that are not necessarily protected. It doesn't mean that they are bad or not helpful but just do your due diligence when you're researching someone and what their credentials are.
Again, these particular credentials may not matter to you. It may not matter to you very much if your therapist is an LCSW versus an LPC, for instance, but if you have very specific considerations and things that you're looking for in a therapist or you're looking for someone who specializes, it's okay to look into whether or not that therapist is trained in that, has specialization in that particular thing.
Jase: I think that's a case where just going for someone with you think the fanciest title or the most education might not be the best fit if what you want is something that is very specific. That might be more likely that someone who is a coach could specialize in that because it's not something that's covered in the big university psychology departments, such as non-monogamy still or certain aspects of being queer or trans or something like that. Just something to keep in mind. What it is you want them to be focused on is important.
Dedeker: When you're starting to reach out to people, it's good to create a list of questions that you might have for when you do first meet a therapist. Some therapists or counselors will offer a 20-minute consultation call that's totally for free to see if you're a good match. Some examples of important questions can be, what is your expertise or specialty? What is your background? What approach do you take? What's your general cost per session? If this is important to you, do you prescribe medication or are you able to refer me to somebody who does? Is your approach to therapy long-term or short-term? Do you continue to get new training or do you adjust your approach based on new research?
What's your process for getting patients comfortable with therapy? Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? What drew you to this? Things like that. It is okay to ask both easy questions and hard questions in my personal opinion because this is important. This is like a first date but the stakes are high. I guess it takes you behind a first date also but I think the stakes are maybe a little bit higher when it comes to your emotional wellbeing in this case.
Jase: It's like maybe a cross between a first date/first friend date with a job interview. It's like somewhere in between these two.
Emily: That sounds like a lot, Jase. All right. Finally, here, we're going to talk about some resources and non-traditional outlets for therapy. For a person like me who I don't have the best insurance, there's not a lot of people in Los Angeles which is one of the most expensive places to probably seek out therapy in the country and it may be easier for me and for a lot of you out there to do apps or to do online therapy. Almost every therapy right now at this particular moment is online because of the pandemic.
Jase: It's a good time for this because a lot of therapists are moving to being able to do online.
Emily: Yes, absolutely.
Dedeker: We're going to do a rough review of some popular therapy apps out there. Now, we initially did include prices on this but then decided not because these things shift and change so frequently. Of course, go to these apps directly or their websites directly to get the most up-to-date information about how much they cost. Generally speaking, most of these end up working out to cost less than the out-of-pocket costs of traditional therapy which is part of their appeal.
However, most of these don't necessarily accept insurance. Some of them do have plans that maybe they could potentially work with your employer as a possible benefit through your employer. Again, with all of these, go to their website to get the most up-to-date information about cost and billing and things like that.
Emily: All right. The first one is Talkspace. They have therapy for adults, for teens, for couples. The services offered free also through employers as an employee benefit or in-network through EAP and health insurers.
Dedeker: Through certain employers, not everybody.
Emily: Yes. Through certain employers. My employer certainly does not give this but others might. All therapists have the highest clinical license in the state in which they practice as well as three years of direct clinical experience. You can do things like texts your counselor when situations arise in addition to having weekly sessions with them. That's a nice thing because I don't think that you can like your therapist who you got to drive to an office in Beverly Hills or whatever. It's difficult to text them probably but via these apps, you can do that.
Dedeker: Of course, we have to compare Talkspace to BetterHelp which is the other big online therapy app and platform right now. BetterHelp matches you to a therapist based on a questionnaire that you fill out. The therapists must have at least three years and 2000 hours of experience and you can switch counselors if your person is not a match. I've definitely done that before but the therapists are not able to diagnose or prescribe over the platform. Again, you can do things like live video sessions or phone sessions, texting, live chats, things like that. In my experience with both of these platforms, I found the Talkspace has a little bit more of upfront hoops to jump through, to get matched.
It was a little bit more of an intensive matching process. BetterHelp process is a little bit less intensive. People may be drawn to one or the other. I found with BetterHelp they do make it very easy to switch counselors because one time when I was using BetterHelp, they matched me with someone where I was like, I don't feel like this was a good match at all. Just based on this person's specialization and things I specifically requested and it was very easy to switch counselors to find someone that worked really well for me.
Jase: Generally, something to keep in mind too, with both of these that allow for texting, sending text-based messages to your therapist is that generally, as a rule, they won't get back to you till maybe the next day. It's not immediately like emergency I can text a friend right now. Sometimes they might get back to you quickly but it's not like these people are now somehow your BFF who's always going to respond to the second that you text them. Just something to keep in mind there.
The next one we have is Larkr. Larkr. This one's a new one to me. This is one that uses an AI quiz type thing to match you with a therapist based on the info that you provide. It also has a self-care interface that you can use for free before you sign up. That's stuff like journaling or mood tracking. There's other apps that just do that, but it's interesting that this one has that as well as connecting you with an actual therapist.
The data that's gathered from those things will be used to help you find the right therapist. Pretty interesting different approach to it. From what I've gathered, this one is more expensive for the therapy sessions than the other ones, it's a little more the costs of traditional therapy, but that could be could be interesting to you as well. Same thing where you can call or text with your therapist in between sessions, but the actual sessions are generally a video call. You might be able to get your insurance to work with this one, maybe not, but it just depends.
Dedeker: Yes, and then there's also this app called ReGain, which does similar things to all the previous apps we've talked about, but this is specifically for online couples therapy. I do have a few clients of mine who have had some good experiences using ReGain. Couples, they'll share an account, you and your partner and the therapists all have access to the same "room".
You can do live sessions, either alone or with your partner. Each of you could write what's going on, ask questions about your issues, and then the therapist can log into the room and offer feedback and advice. ReGain mostly relies on written communication instead of real-time therapy. You can do it asynchronously at any time. You and your partner can also go back and read the history of advice or feedback that's been given at any time.
Emily: Finally, Teen Counseling, is an app that is for kids, teens. Someone 13 to 19. If you fall into that category or you have a kid who is interested in therapy, then this is a good app for them. It is similar to ReGain, the client has a room that only they and the therapist have access to. They can go back and forth as often as needed even in the middle of the night, apparently. The teen has four options for talking to the therapist messaging, live chatting, scheduled phone or video sessions. There are over 3000 therapists that are state-licensed and trained and they have experience with young people. A big conglomeration of different apps for whatever your needs are.
Jase: Yes, so definitely check them all out. I would recommend, look at their interfaces. Look at what they're about. See what their pricing is. See which ones might work with your employer or your insurance, something like that. In general, these are a nice, lower-cost way than seeing an in-person therapist. Right now, like we mentioned a little bit before, a lot of therapists are doing sessions remotely now anyway because of lockdown.
Okay, now, if you want to find a therapist or a counselor or a coach who understands non-monogamy, that's another one because in my experience that generally doesn't show up on these apps in their questionnaires. Have you ever had that come up in a questionnaire, Dedeker?
Dedeker: No, for BetterHelp, I have to spell it out in any of the text boxes very clearly.
Jase: I did the same thing too.
Emily: I am not in a monogamous relationship.
Dedeker: Right or also just spell out very clearly. This is my identity. These are my relationships and it is extremely important to me to find a counselor who is affirming of that and understanding of that or maybe even knowledgeable about that. On psychology Jase, Psychology Today has this huge directory that therapists and counselors can sign up for and they will let you filter by therapist sexuality, racial backgrounds, specialization, but they do not yet have a way to filter by non-monogamy friendly or kink-friendly or polyamory friendly, yet. I have a feeling they're going to reach a tipping point where that's going to happen but that hasn't happened yet.
Jase: Before that happens, in the meantime or even after that happens, there are five different resources that we wanted to mention here. The first is called polyamory friendly professionals directory, which is that polyfriendly.org. The next one is the kink aware professionals directory or KAP, which is at ncsfreedom.org. This one, while being kink aware also does include polyamory and non-monogamy friendly therapists as well. There's one called the open list, which is that openingup.net/open-list. Again, you can also just google these things.
If you Google king aware professionals directory or polyamory friendly professionals directory or the open list, you'll find them that way too. Loving more has the polyamory loving more member professional list. Boy, that's a mouthful. That's a lovingmorenonprofit.org and then there's a site called Affirmative Couch. I always want to call it Affirmative coach but it's Affirmative Couch.
Emily: Technology is so affirmative,
Jase: This couch you're sitting on, this couch is so affirmative, affirmativecouch.comm they have a section called meet our experts where they talk about some of their-- I think it's their writers for their site but they're also people that you could go see who are affirming. Their couches are affirmative, their couches also are cannot stress how affirmative the couches are, though.
Dedeker: Something I want to highlight about the KAP directory, the kink aware professionals directory is it's not just a directory of mental health professionals, they also include attorneys or accountants, people offering legal services or health and wellness services or doctors outside of just the mental health sphere.
That I always thought it was really cool that if you want to find someone where it's like, I need someone to figure out my estate planning and I have multiple partners or I run a dungeon and I need to figure out who's going to inherit that after I die. I need to find an attorney or an estate planner, who's affirming of that not going to be all weird when I talk about that. You can also find that in the King aware professionals directory.
Jase: Yes, same with the polyamory friendly professionals directory. They're both modeled very similarly, where it's the same thing, lawyers and doctors and chiropractors and massage therapists and all sorts of things. Yes.
Emily: Very cool. Wow. We've done it. We've talked about therapy in two episodes. I learned a ton from both of these. Thank you both for your knowledge that you added to this episode, even past what I researched. I really appreciate it. We're going to finally on our bonus for our patreons talk about if you are looking for polyamory or non-monogamy friendly counselor, here are some questions that you might ask and maybe talk a little bit more about those letters that both of you have talked about sending off to a therapist, because I want to know more the dear therapist, dear diary.
Dedeker: You make it sound like we sit down at our desks and like get out a dip pen. Dear potential therapist, I'm very interested in creating a business relationship with you. Please let me know your credentials and other relevant information. Sincerely, Dedeker Winston, Esquire.
Emily: Well, I don't know about it. I want to hear more about it. Please do trade. Okay. Again, we want to hear from you all you out there, our listeners about what you thought of this episode. If there were things that we missed or if there were things that we should be talking about or bringing to other people's attention about therapy, and just what your experience with therapy has been. If you are in my shoes or if you've been going for 25 years and know all about it and want to teach me more then please let me know.