What are some red flags to identify in a therapist?
Written by the clinical team at The Lyceum Clinic. Clinically reviewed by Sanah Younis, Clinical Director, BABCP-accredited (no. 1000792). Published 28 October 2026. Last reviewed 28 October 2026.
No accreditation you can check on a public register. No assessment before treatment. Sessions that drift without an agenda. No way of knowing whether it is working. A promise to cure anything in a fixed number of sessions. The simplest check is to ask how they will know the therapy is working; a good therapist has a clear answer.
What clients tell us about previous therapists
"They just sat there and nodded while I cried for a year." That sentence, or a version of it, comes up often. Empathy without intervention is not therapy. It is expensive tea and sympathy. The therapist was kind, the client felt heard, and nothing changed.
What a poor therapist skips in session one
Interrupting. A poor therapist lets the client spiral into endless storytelling because it feels supportive. A good one interrupts, gently, to focus on the mechanism keeping the person stuck. If your first session was an hour of talking with no map of the problem at the end of it, that is a flag.
For more detail, read about how CBT works.
The full list
Vagueness about their approach when asked. Pushing their own view of your life rather than helping you examine yours. Poor boundaries around time, money or contact. Discouraging you from questioning or ending the therapy. Talking about other clients. No outcome measures, so neither of you can tell whether it is helping. A promise of a cure.
What to look for instead
A clear plan explained in plain language. A formulation you can see. Experiments between sessions. Honest answers about what the approach can and cannot do. And an accreditation number you can check. At The Lyceum every clinician is on the BABCP register, every course is measured, and every plan is reviewed every six sessions.