Anyone have any advice on this? I hate the way CBT makes me feel but I can’t seem to find a therapist that doesn’t do it. The few I’ve tried that did “therapy tailored to your needs” just did CBT lite. Psychology today has been my main way of finding providers, are there other sites? Is there something I should be looking for specifically?
It’s easier if you know what kind of therapy (also called “modality”) you want to use. For example, let’s say you know you want EMDR, then you could just look at the EMDRIA directory. Same with Internal Family Systems and many other modalities. Many of them have their own directories.
Most online directories also let you filter by treatment approach/technique/modality. So once you know what you want, you can filter by that.
THEN, make sure you actually interview your potential therapist and tell them you don’t want any CBT. It’s crucial to interview/consult before committing to working together. The quality of your relationship with your therapist is seven times more important to your outcomes than the kind of approach they use. So it must be a good fit.
This list of therapy approaches is a good place to start learning - I know it seems overwhelming at first. My recommendation: Start by reading about Psychodynamic Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Narrative Therapy, and Somatic Therapy. All of those are nothing like CBT. There are many others, this is just a start.
Some therapist directories for you:
- Open Path Collective (affordable therapy, $40-$70)
- Psychology Today
- Therapy Den
- Mental Health Match
- Good Therapy
- Therapy Tribe
- ZenCare
- Therapist.com
- Inclusive Therapists
- Therapy for Queer POC
- Therapy for Black Girls
- Therapy for Black Men
- National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network
- Asian Mental Health Collective
- Canadian Directories
- British Directories
- Australian Directories
- New Zealand Directories
Thank you! I don’t really know what kinds of therapy are out there, I tried EMDR and didn’t like it, I can’t follow something with my eyes like that. The links are super helpful!
Glad I could help! And if you ever want to give EMDR another chance, you don’t have to use eye movements, you can hold buzzers in your hands or tap on your knees/clavicles. I hope you find something that works :)
I don’t have an answer but am interested and commenting to see what others have to say.
I’ve had luck with psychology today but I knew exactly what treatment types I did want (internal family systems and EMDR). I also only reached out to therapists who specialised in my condition. I see it like restaurant menus-if they say they treat everything they’re probably not particularly good at treating anything well.
I also hated CBT. Have you looked into what sort of therapy you do want?
I don’t really know? I haven’t really gotten to try other kinds of therapy. Seems like that’s the only one they do. Might try internal family systems if I can find someone who does it.
I’m just curious what you mean by how CBT makes you feel. It’s just a way to train you to think about things in a different way.
It always just feels like “have you tried not being bothered by that?” Maybe ive gotten bad therapists, but I’m just not vibing with it.
I agree with this. I had 2 CBT therapists before my current therapist and both times it felt really condescending/invalidating to me. Questions like “have you considered that your anxiety is not rational?” felt really off the mark and when I said “yeah of course I know it’s not rational,” they didn’t have anything to add beyond that. It wasn’t helpful to me at all.
Oh absolutely. Telling me this isn’t rational isn’t helpful, I know it’s not rational. Thats why I’m in therapy, isn’t it? It just seems to boil down to “don’t think bad thoughts” which like GOD I wish it was that easy.
I would consider trying DBT if both CBT and EMDR didn’t work out for you. I know what you mean about how silly and invalidating it feels to have a therapist just telling you to think differently. DBT is a lot less thought-oriented, and more feeling/behavior-based. I just started listening to a podcast called “The Skillful Podcast” where they take you through the techniques, if you want to try it out. If that doesn’t work though, you’re welcome to share a bit more about what you’re looking for and I feel like folks here could try to help you find something that fits better.
