Summary: If you have mental health challenges and you’re ready to seek professional support, how do I find a psychiatrist who’s right for me is probably the first question on your mind. To find a psychiatrist who’s a good fit for you, there’s a simple, step-by-step process you can take.
Key Points:
- You need a full evaluation administered by an experienced mental health provider.
- You need an accurate diagnosis. This is essential for effective treatment.
- You need a referral for specialized care from an experienced mental health provider.
- Once you have an evaluation, a diagnosis, and a referral, you can start your search to find a psychiatrist who’s right for you.
First Steps: The Evaluation Process
Seeking treatment for mental health has changed significantly over the past 30 years. In the 1990s, seeking treatment for mental health issues became more common, with the advent of the medical model of mental health disorders, which changed the way most people thought of mental health disorders. Earlier concepts of mental health disorders, i.e. mental illness, labeled mental health problems as personal weakness or character failing of some sort.
For instance, people with anxiety were often met with advice like, “Relax, it’s no big deal: don’t worry.” Anyone with anxiety knows being told just don’t worry about that is the opposite of help: it will typically make you anxious and worried you can’t seem to just relax and let it go.
And people with depression often got unsolicited advice like “count your blessings” or “look on the bright side” or “think positive and positive things will happen.” Again, all qualify now as what not to say to someone with depression.
Back then, if you asked yourself, “How Do I Find a Psychiatrist Who’s Right for Me?” your options were severely limited by a general lack of knowledge combined with stigma resulting from this general lack of knowledge.
The medical model of mental health did one very important thing: it debunked the idea that mental health disorders are the result of personal weakness, mental frailty, or a character flaw that prevented people from taking the advice most people gave – suck it up and deal with it – and replaced it with the theory that identifies mental health disorders as the result of biological factors in the brain caused by a combination of genetics, environment, and personal experiences, such as trauma.
In practice, for you, what this now means is that you can ask for and receive mental health screenings from your primary care physician. The medical model makes them comfortable with initial screenings for overall mental health, as well as specific assessments for depression (MDD), anxiety (GAD), bipolar disorder (BD I&II), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and others.
Next Step: Finding Your Psychiatrist
Depending on the outcome of your assessment(s), your primary care physician may offer you a referral for specialized care with a psychiatrist. That’s when your real search begins. Things that affect your search that you don’t have direct control over include:
- The outcome of your initial assessment.
- Your mental health diagnosis and treatment history.
- Your family mental health and treatment history
- The severity of your symptoms and the level of disruption they cause.
Things that affect your search that you have control over include:
Gender Preference.
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- Do you want a male or female psychiatrist?
Social and Cultural Factors.
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- If you’re a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, do you prefer a psychiatrist who’s also a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, or one with experience working with LGBTQIA+ patients and associated issues?
- If you’re from a minority culture in the U.S., do you want a therapist with the same or similar cultural background?
Specialization.
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- Once you receive a full psychiatric evaluation – see below – to confirm, clarify, or specify the results of initial screenings administered by your primary care provider, you’ll receive an official diagnosis.
- Depending on the diagnosis, you may want a psychiatrist with specific experience in your diagnosis, which can be a critical component of your search: different psychiatrists have different types of training, experience, expertise, and interest.
Type of Treatment.
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- Medication management. Some psychiatrists focus on evaluation, assessment, diagnosis, and prescribing appropriate psychiatric medication. After the initial assessment/diagnosis phase, you meet with them to discuss whether your medication helps you effectively manage your symptoms, report any negative side-effect, and touch base on your overall progress. In some cases, psychiatrists who focus on medication management do not offer psychotherapy, a.k.a. talk therapy.
- While some psychiatrists focus on medication management, others also offer psychotherapy such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and others.
When you receive a referral for care from your primary care physician, you can use the list above to guide your search for an assessing/evaluating psychiatrist. And once you receive a full psychiatric assessment administered by a psychiatrist to confirm and specify your diagnosis (if needed), you can choose to initiate treatment with that psychiatrist, if you feel like they’re a good fit. Or, if they don’t meet all your preferred criteria – meaning your specific treatment needs – you can continue the search to find a psychiatrist who’s right for you.
The Last Step: Connection Matters
When you ask the question How do I Find a Psychiatrist Who’s Right For Me? it’s important to understand that you’re also asking:
How do I find someone I trust with my most personal inner thoughts and feelings?
How do I find someone who actually cares, and isn’t just going through the motions?
Can I find someone with real experience helping people with my specific issues?
When you think of your search for the right psychiatrist for you, these questions highlight something that’s critical: the rapport between you and your psychiatrist. This is important whether you want to engage in psychotherapy with your psychiatrist or use them for medication management only: you need a good relationship either way. However, if you intend to engage in talk therapy with them, that rapport – called the treatment alliance – takes on greater significance.
Here’s how experts from the American Psychological Association (APA) summarize the functional role of the treatment alliance between the patient (you) and the mental health provider (your potential psychiatrist):
“Anyone who dispassionately looks at [the research] can now say that the therapeutic relationship is as powerful, if not more powerful, than the particular treatment method a therapist is using. We now know that some of these therapeutic elements not only predict but probably cause improvement.”
In other words, finding the right psychiatrist means finding someone who not only meets all the professional criteria – education, licensure, experience – but also has a personality and interpersonal style you genuinely connect with.
The experts from the APA continue, emphasizing the primary role of the relationship:
“It’s primary in the sense of being the horse that comes before the carriage, with the carriage being the interventions.”
We’ll elaborate on this below.
Making Your Choice: A Combination of Factors
Let’s recap.
To find the right psychiatrist for you, you need:
- An accurate diagnosis
- To decide if you want talk therapy, medication management, or both
- A psychiatrist with experience related to your needs, which includes factors like:
- Specific skills, training, and experience with your diagnosis
- Relevant social and cultural factors
- A psychiatrist you connect with and with whom you can establish a positive rapport.
- This matters because – as evidence shows – treatment outcomes improve when you can establish a positive treatment alliance with your provide.
Regarding that last bullet point, we encourage you to think about it this way:
If you have a trauma related disorder and you find a psychiatrist near you, with experience treating people with a history of trauma and specific experience with techniques designed specifically for trauma, but upon meeting them you don’t like them, feel uncomfortable around them, and find it difficult to establish even a rudimentary rapport, then they may not be the right psychiatrist for you.
Remember: it’s your mental health we’re talking about, which means the final decision is yours. Once you have an accurate diagnosis – meaning more than a quick mental health screen from your family doctor – you can get online, get on the phone, and start talking to potential therapists or treatment centers.
In addition to all of the above, there’s another simple way to find a potential psychiatrist: word of mouth. If you have close friends or family members who’ve used a psychiatrist before, they may provide you with someone you can call. If they recommend them, that means they trust them. That’s a step in the right direction. And if that therapist doesn’t meet your criteria, then they may be able to connect you with someone who does.
Other things to consider we haven’t mentioned yet:
- Location. It helps if they’re nearby. If they’re not, consider telehealth/virtual care.
- Insurance. Finding a provider in your network will reduce the financial commitment required.
- Your readiness. Before you choose a psychiatrist, we recommend making sure you’re really ready to take the step, engage in treatment, and make positive change in your life.
You can find the right psychiatrist for you. Use the resources we provide above, be picky, and don’t settle: your life, your mental health, your choice.
Finding Help: Resources
If you or someone you know needs professional treatment and support for schizophrenia, please call us for a free screening. In addition, you can find support through the following online resources:
- The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI): Find a Professional
- The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH): Finding Treatment
- The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA): Finding Help
- American Psychiatric Association (APA): Treatment Locator
- SAMHSA: Early Serious Mental Illness Treatment Locator
