How to find a good counsellor in India

You have several tabs open. Every profile reads well. The titles are all slightly different and you do not know which difference is the one that matters.

That is a reasonable place to be stuck, because the labels in India are genuinely confusing and most listings do not explain them.

What the titles mean

In plain terms, with no attempt to make any of them sound better than the others.

A counsellor works through conversation. The training is in talking work: listening, sitting with difficulty, helping someone think about a situation with a person who is not inside it. A counsellor does not diagnose, does not conduct psychological testing and does not prescribe anything. The title of counsellor is not protected in the way clinical psychologist is, and a counsellor does not hold Rehabilitation Council of India registration, which is exactly why asking about the qualification matters more here than it might elsewhere.

A psychologist has a degree in psychology, usually a master's. That covers a wide range of work, from research to organisational roles to applied practice, so the word on its own does not tell you what the person actually does day to day.

A clinical psychologist holds a specific clinical qualification and is registered with the Rehabilitation Council of India. This is the person who can assess and diagnose, and who administers psychological testing. If you need a formal diagnosis, or a report for a school, a workplace or a court, this is the route.

A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who then specialised in psychiatry. A psychiatrist can prescribe medication. If medication is part of what you need, nobody else on this list can provide it.

It is also fairly common for one person to be seen alongside another: a psychiatrist for medication, and someone else for the weekly conversation.

Since this page names all four, it would be odd not to be plain about the practice you are reading. A Safe Place is run by Garima Agarwal, who is a Counsellor and holds a Diploma in Counselling Psychology. Not a psychologist, not a clinical psychologist, not a psychiatrist. The work is individual counselling and related talking work, online. If what you actually need is a diagnosis, a psychometric assessment or a prescription, that is one of the other three, and it is far better to know that before you book than after.

What matters more than the title

Once you have ruled out the obvious mismatch, the credential stops being the deciding factor, and something less tidy takes over.

The main question is whether you can say the true thing to this particular person. You can know that after one session and not before, which is annoying but worth accepting early.

A few other things that turn out to matter more than people expect.

Whether they are honest about what they do not do. Someone who tells you plainly that your situation needs a doctor, or that a particular problem sits outside their work, is more trustworthy than someone who takes on everything. Scope honesty costs them a booking, which is precisely why it is a good signal.

Whether the practical arrangements fit your real week. A counsellor you cannot reach at the only hour you are free is not a good counsellor for you, however well suited they are on paper. Time, language, cost and format are not secondary details.

Whether you can think in the language of the session. If you grew up explaining feelings in Hindi, describing them in English adds a step of translation, and the translation usually smooths the thing you were trying to describe.

Whether the same person is there each time, at a time you can hold. Continuity does more work than most people credit it with.

And whether you feel listened to rather than advised. Advice is easy to get and rarely the thing that was missing.

Questions worth asking first

Any counsellor should be able to answer these without defensiveness. Pay as much attention to how easily they answer as to what the answer is.

• What is your qualification, in full, and what does it allow you to do
• What does it not cover, and what would you refer out
• How long is a session, what does it cost, and is that per session or a package
• Will you tell me if what I am describing needs a doctor instead
• Is anything recorded, and does anyone else ever see notes
• What happens if I need to reschedule, and what notice do you need
• Which language will we actually be speaking
• How will we know whether this is working
• Can I stop, and do I have to explain why

A short, specific answer to the first one is a good sign. Vagueness about a qualification is worth taking seriously. So is pressure to buy a block of sessions before you have had one.

For a longer walk through the professions, there is a separate piece on the difference between a counsellor, a psychologist and a psychiatrist.

What a bad fit feels like, and what to do about it

First, a distinction that saves people from leaving too early. Being uncomfortable in a session is not the same as a bad fit. Talking about something you have avoided for years is supposed to feel difficult, and the discomfort of the subject often arrives on the way home. That is the work, not a warning.

A poor fit feels different. The common versions:

• You find yourself performing. Editing, reassuring them, giving the version that will go down well
• You are being advised rather than heard, and the advice is not new to you
• You are steered towards a moral or religious conclusion you did not ask for
• You are rushed, or the hour feels like it is on someone else's clock
• They do not remember what you told them last week
• You leave feeling judged, and it does not ease over the following days
• You are pushed to commit to a number of sessions before you are ready

If two or three sessions in it still feels like that, it is reasonable to stop. You do not owe an explanation, and you can simply not book again. If you would rather say something, one line is enough: this is not quite working for me, thank you.

Two things people get wrong here. Leaving is not a failure of counselling and it is not a comment on you. And changing counsellor is not starting from zero, because you now know a good deal more about what you are looking for and what you want to say, which is most of what a first session is for.

If you want to talk

The practicalities, so nothing is a surprise. Fifty minutes, Rs 1,000, on Google Meet, in English or Hindi. Ten in the morning to six in the evening, seven days a week by appointment. Twenty four hours of notice to reschedule. Online across India, from a practice based in Gurugram.

Fit is the thing you cannot work out from a page, which is what the free 15 minute introductory call is for. It is short, it costs nothing, and it is a reasonable place to ask the questions above and hear how they are answered. Booking afterwards is not expected, and deciding that someone else suits you better is a perfectly good result from it.