So you’ve identified a potential therapist with whom you’d like to work, and you’ve booked a consultation. Good job! Things are moving in a positive direction. 

Here is the fourth of 5 questions you can ask a potential therapist to see if that therapist would be a good fit. 

4. “What are my best hopes from talking?” 

This question is a bit different from the other three I’ve covered so far – this is a question for you to ask yourself before going into a consultation. 

The therapist you are consulting with might pose this question to you (“what are your best hopes from talking?”) but there is the possibility that they may not. That’s a loss because this question is the most important one a therapist can ask. 

That’s a bold claim and I’d like to back it up with an analogy: imagine you’ve landed at an airport and stepping outside to the street you see an old-fashioned taxi cab (not a ride-share car). You decide to get in. The driver turns to you and asks, “so where d'you wanna go?” 

“I don't want to be at this airport anymore,” you respond. 

“So where to then?” they ask again.

“Not here,” you say. 

At this point your cab driver is confused. They may ask you to get out. Or worse, they may decide for you where you will go. They may decide to take you an hour outside of town (with the meter running, of course). 

The same goes in therapy. If you tell your therapist, “I don’t want to be depressed,” you are sharing an important reason for coming to therapy: you don’t want to be depressed anymore. A good therapist will acknowledge what you don’t want. However, a good therapist will also be curious about what you do want instead. The “instead” that you share with your therapist speaks to your best hopes from the talking. 

So the “best hopes” question is your destination. It’s your answer to “so where d'you wanna go?”  As a therapist, I can say that direction from a client is immensely helpful because it gives us a focus. Without knowing your best hopes, a not-so-good therapist might do like the cab driver and decide for you your goals for therapy. And since one can work on “not being depressed” forever, a no-so-good therapist might enjoy driving you in this direction for years (with the therapy meter running of course). 

I would love to hear your feedback on this post as well as your best hopes from talking. Please share your thoughts with me at jeremyfaintherapy@gmail.com