The difficulty is either I don't know anyone my age that has one or it's still taboo for men to talk about so people don't. I'd guess it's a combination of both. The only people I've known personally who see a therapist are women (and from that small sample they don't want you to see their same person).
I think men tend to rely entirely on their SO which is probably not a great thing for either party.
Which is fair enough. That's why I'm suggesting to not get their therapist's details to see the same person, but to get a recommendation from the therapist. Hopefully that would alleviate their concerns.
AFAIK a good therapist will not see people who are too close to each other anyway as there can be a bias on the therapist's side due to the close relationship. For example doing both couple and individual therapy with the same therapist is not a good idea.
But everyone is happy recommending therapy. Oooh, it's sooo great! Yeah. Only if I could find some.
I'm assuming therapists designed their funnel this way, somehow, there's something about me that puts me in this category of people that can't get over the initial barrier of finding them.
I feel the stupidly stressful process of trying to find a therapist itself has increased my need for therapy.
I am asking because here in France it is either a medical field (reimbursed, an example would be a psychiatrist) or not (a psychologist for instance)
In my experience the best way to find someone is through recommendations. Find someone with a good therapist, and contact the therapist for recommendations. They usually know other people in the field that work with a similar approach.
I feel CBT only works with simple issues. For trauma and deep running issues I would suggest finding someone who looks into the root of issues and doesn't just try to change behaviours. See psychotherapy for example.
Otherwise it depends on where you live as well.
In Australia, and definitely for NSW:
- look for a psychiatrist instead of a psychologist. With a psychologist you get 10 sessions for free by the government, but then you have to pay the full fee yourself. This ends up being around $150-$250 per session from what I have seen. With a psychiatrist the medicare safety net kicks in, and after $2000 of out of pocket expenses you get 85% of the session fees back. In my case I end up paying ~$40 for my $350 therapy sessions which makes a huge difference when therapy can be going for years.
Happy to help out with recommendations in the NSW Australia area.