How to find a local psychologist?
You can easily find a psychologist or psychiatrist by Google searching either term, followed by the words near me or the name of your community. For instance, search “psychologist in Fort Collins, Colorado,” and you will see a list of providers in that area.
Advertisements will dominate the list. Sometimes the first page or two are all with “sponsored“ next to the names of clinics or providers. That means they had to pay some money to Google to get that ranking. It might cost them a dollar or two or even ten dollars “for every click” they get on those ads to get a high ranking in Google searches. Most people are not aware that now there are “advertising wars” between hospitals and clinics and providers, to attract potential patients. There isn’t anything wrong with competition, it is part of a free country. But don’t just start clicking on the first thing you see. Then you’ve taken the clickbait. This is like in the old days with yellow page ads, you could pay more for a bigger ad or an ad that had bold print or an outline to grab people's attention. Just so you know. The groups that can afford to pay alot in ad money have 5 or 10 providers to pay in to the advertising budget. So sponsored ads will favor the big groups.
In your search on Google Maps, you can find providers’ local locations. This list may or may not be influenced by advertising spend. But you can verify that these companies actually live in your community. Some virtual clinics will look like they actually are physically present in your community, but they just have online providers who may or may not be in your city, county or state. They might be halfway across the country.
Why is this important? Well, what if you’re not getting very far in online counseling, in-person counseling can sometimes be far more effective and result in a breakthrough. I’ve seen that with some of my patients. So in my opinion, given your mental health is on the line, you want to have that as an option. Keep your options open.
There are other search engines besides Google, but Google is the main one. You can get different results on your phone versus your laptop, and sometimes, they are different results depending on what browser you are using.
It really pays to do your research. Some people who see me for the first time say they spent an hour or more reading different people's websites and online reviews. Often it’s another person who did the research, like a parent or spouse or friend. The person in a lot of emotional distress often doesn’t have that kind of mental energy to look at all these different websites and think about what they’re reading and what it said and didn’t say. If you are having someone search for you, let them know all the things you want in a provider.
Don’t be afraid to ask another person to research for you and discuss what they find. Asking for help isn’t a sign of “weakness,” but using a sophisticated support network to solve adult problems. It is the mature thing to do. To let problems go and get worse, when there is a fix if you use your support network, that is immature. Society in general, on the other hand, doesn’t respect the attitude of a person not taking responsibility for their life and then asking others to fix what the person could have fixed. If you don’t have the focus or mental energy to research the best provider for you, ask for help from a trusted friend. Fully half of my new patients say they found me as a new provider after someone else (a friend, spouse, Mom or Dad, brother or sister) did the research. It’s OK. It’s what sane people do: ask for help. What would you say to a friend who said, “Gosh would you help me out? I have some problems I could have solved by using my support system but I didn’t use it.” You might talk to him a time or two, and then you’d ask him, “Why didn’t you use your support system earlier? It’s not a sign of weakness to use your support system. It is a source of strength.”
Asking others to fix what you can fix is codependency, a form of pessimism about yourself. But that’s not what you are doing in the situation when you don’t have the mental energy to research providers for you. I review the nature of this kind of pessimism in the book, “Prescription For Positivity.” The stories show, again and again, how people get stronger when they use their support system.
You can tell if a certain clinic or group of providers is primarily or exclusively online, by going to Google Maps and seeing if there is a physical location for the group. If they say they have 10,15 or 20 providers and the physical location is a small single-room office, then you know it’s mostly online people or totally online people. Which is OK. But if you look up those individual providers and nothing much is said, move on. You need to know about their education and experience. You need to know a little about them personally, because a connection with a psychologist or psychiatrist is a personal one. If you can’t learn that personal information about a provider, move on.
On the other hand, if all you want to do is online counseling, what’s called telepsychiatry, then, maybe that doesn’t matter to you. But in general, you would normally want somebody who lives in your community who is familiar with the culture, who speaks your language, and can anticipate the struggles people have in that community. The struggles might be the high cost of rent or race relations or the culture in certain neighborhoods or schools. You want a therapist who can relate to you. I hope this is helpful for you.