I Needed a Therapist to Help With Anxiety, So I Tried the GoodTherapy Directory

I’ve been living with anxiety for a while—but lately, I realized I have just started accepting that anxiety as part of my everyday life, which … isn’t great. For example, I would check in with my physical body and feel tension throughout the day, a clenching of my jaw, or an inability to relax my brain at night, with thoughts swirling about my dad’s declining health or money I was owed or my kids’ life choices. I began thinking “That’s just life.” But instead, I wanted to explore ways to take control of my thoughts so that they wouldn’t impact my physical body and sleep so much.

This led me to start considering online therapy as a way to find a therapist who might be able to help me live life from a more calm and enjoyable baseline state. But after some trial and error with online therapy companies, I still hadn’t found a therapist I liked. So I decided that this time I would try the online therapy directory GoodTherapy. Directories aren’t companies trying to sell you a service; instead, they’re essentially an online phone book of therapists, allowing you to search for a therapist based on where you live and therapist characteristics like specialization, gender identity, faith, and more. And since GoodTherapy lists providers in all 50 states and Washington D.C., as well as Canada and over 25 countries worldwide, I figured it could get me into a bigger pool of options—and I was right.

After considering things like GoodTherapy’s reach, range of provider options and qualifications, extensive filters to narrow down my search, and cost, I was immensely impressed with this directory—and our most recent research reflects this as well.

Looking for a Therapist

Upon visiting the site, I was immediately struck by GoodTherapy’s “Vision” statement: “We envision a mental health community in which clinicians view all people as capable of change. Far too often, people are seen as deficient and lacking what it takes to be healthy and happy. We work to eliminate this destructive trend. We encourage therapists to give people the benefit of the doubt by holding to the wisdom that people are born lovable, loving, and vulnerable beings and to understand that people are shaped by their experiences and circumstances.”

When I began to search, I typed in my ZIP code as prompted in the “Find a Therapist” tab. I was happy to see 14 telehealth options for what is not a massive city. But then I realized that since I was looking for telehealth, the therapist did not need to be that close as long as they were licensed to treat patients in my home state of Michigan. So, instead of searching by ZIP code, I went back to “Find a Therapist” and searched by state. That opened my options up to over 500 therapists offering telehealth in Michigan.

First, I could not find the filter option when using my phone. Then I went to my computer and found it there just fine, but sometimes when I would enter new filter options it would not update my choice list. At first, this was difficult to tell, as I was picking some pretty general options like “individual therapy,” and I still had a ton of choices (so I thought that every therapist must offer individual therapy). But to test it, I chose very specific, not very common things like “regression therapy” and “shamanic journeying,” and the therapist list still never changed.

But then out of nowhere, it started to work again—and when it worked, it was quite helpful. I could choose if I preferred a male, female, or non-binary therapist and which language I preferred. I could also pick a specialty—for example, if I wanted to work with someone specializing in eating disorders, addictions, teens, panic attacks, etc.

Then I could choose the type of service I was searching for. Did I want group therapy, premarital counseling, a psych evaluation, coaching, or residential hospitalization?  There were about 30 service options to choose from. I could then filter by insurance company, which would have been incredibly helpful if I was covered by insurance.

When it came to the types of therapies I could search for, I was impressed with the choices available. Of the perhaps 120 options, there were therapies I knew about, such as psychoanalysis, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and Gestalt therapy, and then there were some I wasn’t aware of, such as brain spotting, autogenic training, constructivism, lifespan integration, logotherapy, and depth therapy. Some options were much more holistic than I’d expected from a directory. I appreciated the diversity, especially with options such as dreamwork, breathwork, art therapy, Jungian psychotherapy, healing touch, and play therapy.

The therapist profiles are very in-depth and offer transparent information right away, such as how much sessions cost, what insurance they accept, what types of therapy they use, and what you can expect from working with them.

I found a therapist who struck me as practical and with a warm approach instead of just academic.  Her profile noted that she recognized how uncomfortable it can be for some people to trust a new therapist enough to open up. She also mentioned that she does not work with a “one size fits all” mentality and that she could try different types of therapy until she figured out what worked best for the client. She treats using both CBT and EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), two therapy types that I didn’t know much about but have wanted to explore.

In terms of insurance acceptance, my therapist’s profile was very clear that she works in a network with ACI Specialty Benefits, Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), Optum, Optum/UnitedHealthcare, United Behavioral Health, and Priority Health. She also offers a brief free phone consultation or email exchange to help a client get to know her. Her rates were not listed on the GoodTherapy site, but after inquiring when I made my appointment I found out that they were $110 for a 60-minute video session, and it was easy enough to pay by credit card.

How I Contacted My Therapist

I had three ways to contact this therapist. There was a phone number tab, one that said “Email” that took me to a form I could fill out that would email her, then a “visit website” button. I enjoyed going to her website to learn more about her in her private practice—the wording there seemed to support what she had said in her GoodTherapy profile about prioritizing putting the client at ease.

I called the number on her website and could get an appointment for two business days later. I was immediately emailed the link I would need to join the call. As someone who worked with online therapists in the past who would sometimes take three days to respond, only to offer me their first appointment time two weeks out, this was a wonderful first impression.

My First Session

My 60-minute session went so much better than many of my other online therapy sessions had in the past. My therapist was punctual and there were no technical glitches on the video call.

She knew how to balance telling me things about herself with asking about me, which was important to me. I need to know a bit about my therapist so I can decide how much I want to open up to this person, but then I also don’t want my therapist to spend the whole time talking about themselves.

We didn’t get very far therapy-wise during the first “getting to know each other” appointment, but I left feeling excited about working with her with CBT in the next session to start taking control of my thought process.

I think the best feature of GoodTherapy is the sheer number of ways you can customize your search. By providing such a wealth of choices for important aspects of therapy such as specialties and therapeutic approaches, GoodTherapy practically guarantees that you will find a provider who fits what you’re looking for. It certainly worked for me.

This customization is beneficial for the therapists listed on GoodTherapy as well. By being able to specify details like expertise, the communities they serve, and the insurance they accept, therapists can expect to be contacted by clients who are a good fit for their practice—which leads to a lot less wasted time for both the therapist and the therapy seeker.

Free Resources on GoodTherapy

There is also a plethora of free resources available on the GoodTherapy website. On the bottom of the homepage are links to three free assessment tests: a Career Personality and Aptitude Test, an Emotional Intelligence Test, and an Interpersonal Communication Skills Test. I was bored one day and took the 240-question career test with a friend for fun, and I probably will get to the other two tests eventually just out of curiosity.

There is also a pretty extensive blog that looks to be updated every few days, with content such as “Are you a prisoner of your compulsions?” to “ADHD burnout” to “What sets apart an exceptional therapeutic relationship from an average one?”  Many articles are written by the directory’s therapists, and you can search the blog by title, author, or topic.

Our Most Recent Testing

We returned to GoodTherapy in May of 2024 to see if we’d have a similarly positive experience as we did before—and luckily, we did.

We were especially impressed with the number of filtering options presented to us right off the bat.

Another thing that stood out to us was that the directory automatically shows you providers who are currently accepting new patients, though you can turn off this choice when searching for therapists if that doesn’t matter to you—thereby increasing both the ability to completely personalize your search and the chance that you will connect with someone who can take you on as part of their practice.

We also appreciated the multiple ways we were able to get in touch with a therapist on GoodTherapy. Not only was contact information like phone numbers, practice addresses, and links to private practice websites available on most therapists’ bios, but we could also message any therapist directly by clicking the “Email Me” button at the bottom of the page. However, we did notice that this did not lead us to an email address but rather to a contact form that we could fill out and send to the therapist through the directory.

Some therapists list their prices on their bio pages, but others do not. We could, though, filter for cost categories such as “sliding scale” and “free initial consultation,” which helped us in our search and left us feeling confident that we could find a provider within our price range.

Pros and Cons

As someone looking for a therapist, I found this directory to be quite helpful, but there are always good things and bad things about any service.

Final Thoughts

Online therapy directories are a little different than online therapy companies—you are responsible for finding your own provider, so there’s more research involved and your experience could differ drastically from someone else’s just because of the therapist you end up choosing.

It offered exactly what it said it would. The only glitch for me was with the filtering of therapists, but it did not stop me from being able to move forward and find a therapist pretty easily.

It offered me way more choices than I expected and opened my eyes to many different types of therapy that I hadn’t even known were an option. Perusing this directory got me excited and curious to explore therapy as opposed to “let’s quickly just find someone and get this over with.”

Additionally, I think GoodTherapy attracts some very high-quality therapists because of how comprehensive the provider profiles can be. We interviewed 12 therapists on GoodTherapy who told us their qualifications were vetted by the directory before they were allowed to set up a profile. This establishes a first line of defense against finding an unqualified provider. In addition, these therapists specifically pointed out how detailed they can be in their profiles and how helpful that is when trying to attract new clients to their practices.

Of all the ways to search for an online therapist I have tried in the past, GoodTherapy was my favorite. I will be recommending it to friends and family.