Dear Ashmitha:

You are welcome. I am glad to read that you are feeling a lot better today, more at peace with your decision, that you have a friend in a similar situation that you can talk with, and that you intend to put your energy into excelling in your Master’s degree and finding a great job next summer when you graduate!

I think that finding a quality therapist is a great idea. You wrote that you are debating between a social worker, psychotherapist or psychologist- I don’t know much about the difference between these, but I bet there is a few good online sources on the matter. Personally I had a high quality psychotherapist for a couple of years. His specialty was Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). He added a heavy dose of Mindfulness to his practice. He was flexible, not limited to CBT, using many theories and creative techniques.

After a few sessions of getting to know me, he put together a list of objectives for my therapy,  and ways to meet those objectives (he gave me a printout of those). Over time he adjusted those. He was empathetic and generous with his time (If he didn’t have a client after me, he gave me a longer session, not charging for the extra time). After each session he gave me homework (or sent me an email later with a homework assignment) which we went over in the following session.

anita