What can you tell about a therapist without a testimonial?

At a Wellington Women In Business networking event recently, someone asked why I don’t use client testimonials to promote my counselling practice.

There are professional guidelines around testimonials, but for me, it’s also about something more fundamental: respect and care.

I don’t think a client’s experience of therapy should become a marketing tool for my practice.

But the question stayed with me.

Because I know what it’s like to look at a therapist’s website and still have no idea whether you’ll feel comfortable with them.

Will they get you?

Will the room feel safe enough to say what you actually came to say?

Will you be able to laugh occasionally, or will everything feel terribly serious?

A testimonial doesn’t usually answer those questions.

So perhaps, instead, small and honest glimpses of who I am can be useful.

Serious about the work, not necessarily serious all the time

I take counselling seriously. People bring difficult, sometimes life-changing things into the room, and I don’t take that lightly.

But I don’t think that means we have to be two solemn people sitting opposite each other for fifty minutes.

Sometimes something funny happens.

In fact, some of the hardest conversations I’ve had with clients have happened immediately after a moment of lightness.

Not because humour was being used to avoid something.

Quite the opposite.

Sometimes laughing releases a little tension. It can make the room feel more human. And occasionally, after a shared smile, someone finds it easier to say the thing they’ve been struggling to say.

This made me laugh out loud recently:

“I love the phrase ‘bear with me’ because it could either mean ‘please be patient’ or ‘the heist at the zoo was a success.'”

It turns out my sense of humour is quite easily entertained.

And perhaps that’s useful information too.

Getting a sense of the person behind the practice

Choosing a counsellor is a strange business.

You’re considering talking to someone you’ve never met about things you may not have told anyone else. A website can tell you about qualifications, experience, fees and how to make contact, but none of those things quite tells you what it will feel like to sit in the room with that person.

I can’t tell you what your experience of counselling with me will be. That belongs to you.

But I can give you some sense of the person you’ll meet.

I’m thoughtful. I’m straightforward. I take the work seriously. I like people. I believe that difficult things can sometimes be talked about without making everything heavier than it already is.

And yes, I may occasionally find a joke about a zoo heist disproportionately funny.

If you’re looking for a counsellor, perhaps that’s the sort of information that’s actually useful.