How to Find the Right Therapist (Part 2): What Type of Therapy is Best For Me?

A down-to-earth guide to the most common therapy approaches—and how to know which one fits you best.

Therapy can take you in all sorts of directions! How do you figure out which one will work best for you?

So you're navigating through a therapist's profile, and you’re scanning their website to get a sense of what therapy might look like with them. At some point, you might see an odd 3-4 letter jumble that looks like this:

“CBT.” “IFS.” “EMDR.” “ACT.” “DBT.”

No, it's not a secret code - these acronyms are actually important indicators of how your therapist will approach issues and provide treatment. In this article, we’ll help you make sense of some of these common therapy approaches (also called modalities): what they mean, and which one might be the best fit for you.

1. CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)¹

“Think better, feel better.”

Best for: Anxiety, depression, OCD, panic attacks, phobias, sleep issues, overthinking.

CBT is structured, practical, and goal-oriented. It was originally designed to help depression but it's been found to be helpful for a lot of other issues too. A CBT therapist helps you to feel better by challenging you to shift unhelpful thought patterns, unconscious beliefs, and behaviours. You'll explore some of your underlying assumptions of the world and try behavioural experiments like, “What happens if I go to the party without rehearsing small talk in the mirror for 2 hours beforehand?”

👉 Good fit if you have biased thought patterns and behaviours that get in your way.

2. Person-Centered Therapy²

“When you feel truly seen, you begin to change.”

Best for: Identity exploration, people-pleasing, low self-worth, people who’ve never felt fully accepted.

Carl Rogers found that people felt confident to grow when they feel understood and prized. Not just accepted or tolerated, but truly known and delighted in. So that’s what the therapist provides. No advice here, just a therapist who helps you strengthen your internal compass and develop the courage to follow it.

👉 Good fit if you describe yourself as a "chameleon", you're able to fit in with anyone but you feel lonely anyway. Or if you grew up feeling unseen and unheard, and you feel like you have to put on a façade when you're around others.

3. ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)³

“Feel your feelings, do the right thing anyway.”

Best for: Burnout, perfectionism, anxiety, chronic pain, existential dread.

ACT helps you stop fighting your internal world and instead embrace discomfort while choosing to live in alignment with your values. Less thought control, more emotional agility.

👉 Good fit if you get stuck in thought spirals for hours - and wish you could just keep it simple and live more meaningfully.

4. IFS (Internal Family Systems)⁴

“Help your parts stop fighting each other.”

Best for: Trauma, shame, people-pleasing, inner critics, stuck self-sabotage cycles.

IFS helps you explore the different “parts” of you—like the inner critic, the overachiever, the avoider—and approach them with curiosity instead of judgment. Turns out, even your harshest parts are just trying to help (badly).

👉 Good fit if you feel like your inner world is a noisy group chat, and no one’s getting along.

5. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)⁵

“Let your brain do its thing—on fast forward.”

Best for: PTSD, trauma, intrusive memories, anxiety rooted in past events.

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (often eye movements) while you recall distressing memories to help your brain reprocess them. The goal is to take the emotional charge out of the memory, so you can remember it without reliving it.

👉 Good fit if you're carrying trauma that feels stuck in your body and talking about it makes things worse.

6. DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy)⁶

“Two things can be true—and here’s how to deal.”

Best for: Emotional dysregulation, self-harm, BPD, black-and-white thinking, relationship chaos.

DBT combines validation and change. It teaches emotional regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness, and how to not text your ex during a meltdown. Often done in both individual and group settings.

👉 Good fit if you feel your emotions hijack your life and you want both practical skills and compassionate support.

7. Psychodynamic Therapy⁷

“Understand the past to change the present.”

Best for: Long-standing emotional patterns, low self-esteem, relationship issues, stuckness.

This therapy is like archaeology for your psyche. It digs into unconscious patterns, early experiences, and relational dynamics to help you make sense of how you got here—and what still has a grip on you.

👉 Good fit if you'd like to really understand your unconscious mind and make the implicit explicit.

8. Mindfulness-Based Therapy (e.g. MBCT)⁸

“You are not your thoughts.”

Best for: Stress, anxiety, depression relapse, chronic pain.

Mindfulness-based approaches help you notice your thoughts and feelings without getting swept up in them. A big part of the work is learning to observe your inner world with more compassion—and less panic.

👉 Good fit if you’re tired of spiraling and want a calmer relationship with your mind.

9. Narrative Therapy⁹

“You are not the problem. The problem is the problem.”

Best for: Identity struggles, grief, trauma, cultural stress, marginalization.

Narrative therapy helps you step back and look at your life as a story. And sometimes, the stories we tell about ourselves become reductionist, repetitious, and altogether unhelpful. Together, you and your therapist explore which stories are helping you grow—and which ones are holding you back.

👉 Good fit if you feel stuck in a painful story and want to rewrite it with more hope and agency.

10. Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)¹⁰

“What’s working? Let’s build on that.”

Best for: Short-term goals, motivation slumps, career issues, confidence.

SFBT skips the deep dive and goes straight to the part where things start getting better. It’s all about finding what’s already working—and how to do more of that.

👉 Good fit if you're the person who rolls their eyes at problems and says, "Come on. It's not that deep."

So… Which One Should You Choose?

That depends on:

• Your goals – Emotional regulation skills? Self-awareness? Getting over past trauma?

• What’s making you stuck – Is it your thought patterns or a dysfunctional internal dialogue? Is it your approach to relationships—with others and with yourself? A past trauma that you can’t seem to get over?

• Your preferences – Are you ready to do a long-term, deep dive to understand yourself more thoroughly? Do you have a very particular problem that you want to fix?

But more than anything… the vibe matters most. The research is clear: it's not just what your therapist does, it's who they are to you.

Curious what might fit? At Therapy Grove, we take an integrative approach that honours both science and soul. Whether you're looking for skills, insight, or simply a place to figure things out—we’re here for it. And if we’re not able to give you what you’re looking for, we’ll be upfront with you and will help you find a better fit.

Works Cited

1. Beck, Judith S. Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond. Guilford Press, 2011.

2. Rogers, Carl R. On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1995.

3. Hayes, Steven C., et al. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change. Guilford Press, 2011.

4. Schwartz, Richard C. No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Sounds True, 2021.

5. Shapiro, Francine. Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy. Rodale, 2012.

6. Linehan, Marsha M. Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. Guilford Press, 1993.

7. McWilliams, Nancy. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Practitioner’s Guide. Guilford Press, 2004.

8. Segal, Zindel V., et al. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression. Guilford Press, 2013.

9. White, Michael, and David Epston. Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. Norton, 1990.

10. de Shazer, Steve, and Insoo Kim Berg. More than Miracles: The State of the Art of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. Routledge, 2007.
    

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