Six questions you would be right to ask
You are being asked to take advice about your mental health from a website. That deserves scepticism, and pages like this one usually answer it with a mission statement. Here are the six questions we would want answered instead, including the two where the honest answer is awkward for us.
Who actually checks these people?
A person here, before the listing ever appears. Not an algorithm, and not the therapist ticking a box to say they are qualified.
The register, not the logo
We look up the membership number on the professional body’s own public register. Seeing a BACP logo on somebody’s website is not the same thing, and it is the part almost nobody checks.
Insurance and supervision
A current certificate of professional indemnity insurance, and confirmation of regular clinical supervision, which is the arrangement that makes a therapist accountable to somebody other than themselves.
That they are who they say
We check the name on their photographic identity matches the name on the register, and then we do not look at that document again.
And then again, every year
This is the part most directories skip. They check once, at signup, and a membership can lapse in year two while the listing says nothing. Every expiry date we hold is watched. If one passes, the badge comes off that night and the listing leaves the search results until a person here has read the renewal.
What does the badge mean, exactly?
Only ever what was actually checked, named on the badge itself. There is no bare “verified” anywhere on this site, because a word like that means whatever the reader hopes it means. Here are the two you will actually see.
A regulated profession. There is a register they can be removed from, and we looked them up on it.
This is not a regulated profession in the UK, so there is no register to check.
Every word of that caveat appears on the profile itself, not only here.
The difference is the whole point. There is no register a coach can be struck off, and anybody may use the title tomorrow morning with no training whatsoever. One shared badge across regulated and unregulated work would quietly lend the credibility of one to the other. It would also be the easiest way for us to make this site look more impressive than it is, which is why the rule is written into the software rather than left to somebody’s judgement on the day. The full method is here.
How do you make money from me?
What you pay
Searching is free, reading is free, there is no account to make, and we take no commission on anything you go on to book. What you pay a therapist is between you and them, and their fee is on their profile before you contact them.
What a therapist pays
And nobody pays before they have been checked and accepted. That is the whole business model, and it is deliberately the boring one: it means the only thing we have to sell is that the checking is real.
Paid placement exists. Some listings are promoted, and where that happens it is labelled as paid every single time. What money never does is change what was checked, or put an unverified listing in front of a verified one. If you would rather ignore it entirely, sort by distance and the promotion has no effect at all.
What happens to what I type here?
There is no account, no sign-up, and nothing you type into the search or the matching questions is written down anywhere. The answers travel in the address bar and are gone when you close the tab.
That is a piece of engineering rather than a policy we are promising to keep. What somebody is going through is health data, and the only completely safe place to hold it is nowhere.
There is no contact form either. A form would mean a message about your mental health passing through, and then resting in, our database. Every profile carries the therapist’s own email address and phone number instead, and you contact them directly. The message never touches us. It costs us every piece of data an ordinary directory would collect, which is rather the point.
What if I cannot afford any of this?
Then this site is not the answer, and here is what is. These are not a consolation prize. Waiting times vary a great deal by area, so it is worth putting your name down even if you also look privately.
NHS talking therapies
Free, and in England you can refer yourself without seeing a GP first. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland it goes through your GP.
Your GP surgery
Some practices host a counsellor directly, and a GP can refer you on to services that are not listed publicly anywhere.
Charities and training clinics
Counselling charities and university training clinics offer sessions free or at a low rate, usually with a waiting list.
Concession places, here
Many therapists listed hold a small number at a lower rate. They are rarely advertised and they usually go to whoever asks. How to ask, without the awkwardness.
What are you not?
Not a clinic
We do not employ therapists, we do not allocate you to one, and we take no part in your work with them. Everybody listed is independent and responsible for their own practice.
Not an emergency service
Nobody is monitoring this site, and nothing on it reaches a person quickly. If tonight is the problem, the numbers below are the answer and we are not.
Not a place that will tell you therapy fixes things
It helps a great many people and it does not help everybody, and no honest directory can promise you which you will be. There are no reviews of therapists here either: judging therapy by star rating rewards the therapists who make people comfortable, which is not the same as the ones who help.
Founder, Gototherapy
If tonight is the problem, do not wait for any of this
Finding a therapist takes days or weeks. All of these are free, open now, and none of them will think you are wasting their time.