"What Is Your Training"

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Don't get me wrong, understanding the training, background, and experiences of a potential therapist is an important part of deciding the right fit. There are lots of wonderful and some not so wonderful therapies out there, and you want to make sure your therapist is prepared to offer you the support that you need. 

With that said, I would caution you about taking on a belief that if you get "just the right" intervention, it will spare you form the uncomfortableness, accountability,  and investment that needs to happen for any type of therapy for meaningful change to occur.

With that said, the best type of training your therapist can have is not a certification, a protocol, or a guru at a conference

 Here are some types of   Training to consider whether your therapist has:

Your Expertise: The Starting Point: 

"Your therapist can help you discover and practice new ways of getting the help that you need, but what they can't do is "put all your cards on the table." essentially.  your therapist can't tap into all that wonderful, expensive training they have if you aren't attempting to share your story openly, as difficult as that may be.

Their Lives:  The training you can't teach in a workshop or read in a book. 

While I do not believe that a therapist can not help you unless they've had similar experiences, I do know, from personal experience that it can be comforting to know that someone has gone through a version of what you have lived.  As a parent, there is a relief when I meet a parent. When I worked in the corporate world as a manager, it was always nice to process workplace issues with a trusted supervisor or another manager. As a father of  a medically complex child recovering from cancer, I can't begin to share the relief I've experienced when in "my village"

Your therapist won't share everything about their life with yoiu.  Therapy after all, is about you, not them. However, it is within your rights, when your curious, to at least ask a Counselor about their lived experience, and to relcet with them on why that may be important.

Structured Trainings : Having the right tools to provide the right support.

The fact is, certain types of conditions and challenges require specific mental health interventions to have the best shot at success. If you are coming to therapy for couples therapy, it just doesn't make much sense to work with someone who specializes in helping people overcome their fear of spiders.  The opposite also applies I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario in which a couples therapist attempts to heal someone's relationship with a spider. In fact, when you think of it, it sounds quite literally painful.

With that said, most therapists that I know have literally hundreds of hours of training they can bring to bare in your particular situation. Part of the collaboration with your therapist is in working on how to borrow the best idea from these types of approaches and integrate it into what works for you, your values, your personality, and your current situation.

If you'd like to learn more about my background, I'm happy to share not only my background, but also to talk with you about what parts may or may not be relevant. 

Aaron McGinley,  M.A. CMHC, LCMHC, LCMHCS,