1. How do I add a therapist I want to rate and review?
Simple! Navigate from the homepage down into the country, state or province, and then city (if available) where the therapist has their main practice. At the top of the page you will then see an Add new therapist link appear. Fill out the form to add the new therapist. Then you can go directly to the new therapist's page and add a review and ratings for that therapist.

You must be registered with a valid email address in order to add a new therapist or to post a review for an existing therapist.

2. What is the purpose of Therapist Ratings?
Finding a qualified, experienced therapist in your local community has always been a hit or miss proposition. You can ask your doctor, family or friends, but ultimately, it seems like you're just as likely to get a poor therapist than a quality one. While Therapist Ratings won't guarantee you'll get the best therapist available, it will help steer you away from the bad ones and let you know of the good ones available in your community.

3. But is it scientific and valid to rate therapists this way?
Surprisingly, yes. Since the set of folks who are likely to find and use this site is random, it is a fairly good system to ensure you get objective ratings and reviews from others. Sure, it's not foolproof, and we'll remove any slander or libelous postings that we're alerted to, but it's a darned good start from the current lack of information available about most therapists' actual quality.

4. How come you don't ask about a therapist's degrees or credentials?
While you might think that the more degrees a therapist has or the better the credentials would empirically result in better psychotherapy outcomes, the research literature suggests otherwise. Since there is little to no correlation between a therapist's degree and education and your likelihood in getting better because of that, we don't ask. By the way, most clients don't know the exact credentials and degrees of their therapist.

5. Won't this make the poor quality therapists angry?
Yes, information that suggests a therapist may not be very good may not be looked kindly upon by those therapists. But then, that's not our problem. As long as the reviews stick to facts and legitimate opinions by the reviewer, we will stand by the system we've created here.

6. What's your privacy policy? Will you use my email for any other purpose?
Nope, we only use your email address to create and verify your account. We will not use the information gathered in that account creation process for any other purpose, nor will we ever sell any information on this site to any third party.

8. What do each of the specific rating categories mean?

Empathy/compassion
Empathy is the ability to step into another person's perspective and consider how things look from their point of view. Compassion is the ability to have awareness of and sympathy for another person's situation or suffering. Both of these traits are often highly correlated with the effectiveness of a therapist. You'd want a therapist that rates highly in this area.

Effectiveness/knowledge
A therapist that is effective is one that helps a client through changes in their lives. Therapy is first and foremost about making changes that will help a person live with less pain and more happiness. While it may be beneficial to have someone listen to you talk every week, a good therapist will help you find ways to take the talking and turn it into action. Good therapists also tend to be knowledgeable in their specific areas of expertise. They recognize the limits of their own knowledge and honestly tell you when they don't know something. They are also happy to refer you to a specialist when dealing with issues outside of their expertise or training.

Friendliness/helpfulness
While it may not have a specific effect on a therapist's effectiveness or result in more positive therapy outcomes, some people specifically seek out therapists who are friendly and easy to talk to. They may be seeking someone who is helpful and more along the lines of a coaching partner than someone who sits back and only listens. A good therapist is usually genuinely friendly, not in a shallow, cordial way.

Professional attitude/ethical
A good therapist is always ethical and treats the client in a professional, caring manner. They recognize the client's boundaries and do not try to cross them or the professional boundaries in the client/therapist relationship. They never use their knowledge to show off or demean their clients for their own personal self-gratification. They also respect a client's choice in changing therapists and in termination of the therapist relationship. They handle termination in a forthright, professional and open manner. They do not engage in any type of personal, outside or sexual relationship with the client. They let you know up front in the first or second session how they operate and what they expect from in the therapy relationship. They also let you know about appropriate times and ways to communicate with them outside of therapy (e.g., email or in times of crises).

Communication skills
A good therapist has good communication skills, able to explain new concepts or different therapeutic techniques in a manner that is helpful and clear. They use language that is familiar to the client and try to stay away from "psycho babble" and unhelpful technical language. Good therapists respect the power of silence in a therapy relationship, and also find creative ways to help the client express themselves when dealing with issues that are otherwise difficult to communicate.

Flexibility
Good therapists are often more flexible than most people, because they understand that life doesn't always fit within nicely drawn lines. They are willing to reschedule appointments (with 24 hours notice, of course!), offer their services in times of crises, and will consider alternative methods of communication when appropriate (e.g., email). Flexible therapists are usually flexible people, meaning that they are open to new ideas and ways of looking at things from different perspectives. They are more likely to incorporate new ideas and therapeutic techniques into their practice, often increasing their effectiveness in the therapy relationship.

Affordability/insurance coverage
Not every therapist has the same rates, which can vary widely from type of professional seen to the geographic region you live in. Some therapists taken insurance while others do not. This rating reflects how affordable the therapist is to that client in that specific geographic region. Does the therapist take a wide range of insurance plans? Does the therapist offer a sliding-scale, basing their fee upon your income and ability to pay? The more affordable or more insurance plans the therapist accepts, the higher the rating on this scale.

Recommend to a friend?
This is a simple measure to determine how good a therapist is. Professionals we've had bad experiences with we typically do not recommend to friends or family. Professionals who have been helpful to us, we typically would recommend to others. The higher the rating here, the more likely the person would recommend this therapist to friends and family.

8. How can I contact you?
Please use the feedback link found at the bottom of every page.

9. Why cant I login? I am sure that my username and password are correct.
If you have spaces in your username or password, they were automatically converted into an underscore, "_" For instance, john smith will be john_smith.