Your question is a good one. No argument here, not even a be-careful-what-you-ask-for. It's just that there might be a different answer.
With anxiety there are plenty of initials. NICE, NHS, CBT, ACT, EMDR, and that means other letters after a therapist's name on their opened Counselling Directory profile.
It pays to be careful and do your diligence, not just with the modality but with how they sound on screen. It's important, because this is your anxiety and the therapy needs to be right.
You're not wrong.
There's strong support from NICE and dear old Aunty NHS that CBT is the best route forward. Others, like the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, will tell you the NICE framework is too narrow, and that ACT and EMDR earn their place too.
Before we go further, and it's important.
If you're not thinking about which school of therapy is best, if you're wondering how you got through today, this blog isn't the right one for you. There's another one, built for your moment. Go there first, and come back here if you want to. This isn't going anywhere any time soon.
If you're with me, then we can talk about choosing, and what that different answer might be.
Here it is.
Whichever school and letters you pick, that isn't the end of the question.
I'm saying that from the other side of the fence, the other point in the conversation, the one with plenty of modalities in its training. The technique is good. Most of the methods have been around a while, and plenty of therapists have them under their belt.
What's needed is a sound method, too. You should feel something as you work with your therapist. It's an overused word, but it does so much work in therapy: relationship.
It might be anything from can I sit with this person while I struggle to find the right words today, to I'm lucky, my therapist really gets me, and all points in between. It's the glue that holds the whole thing together.
The letters are a signal. This person has done their training. The profile can reinforce it. But when you're reading it, how does that help you with the question, the important one: can I trust them?
The profile can't answer your question, and it isn't fair to expect it to. Just like the rest of us, therapists want to be liked too, and their profiles tend to say pick me first, then trust me next.
It's a gap, but one you can bridge by sitting in a room with one, having a session.
What does it feel like when you run out of things to say? When you deliver something, and realise as the sentence moves through the air it isn't quite the truth you thought? How much space is there for you to piece it all together, and how does your body feel about the experience?
Not just the relief that comes from sharing your thing, but from being with someone else.
If at the end of that there's more of a no than a yes, say so. There's no judgement here. This isn't about the profile, the letters after their name, the school of therapy, or the institution they trained at. It's about people, and you get to try another one. I'm all for it, and I encourage it.
It's a choice you make. It's your time, it's your story.
One last thing. The question you typed was what type of therapist is best for anxiety. A good question. It just wasn't quite the whole one.
The one you meant, the one with a bit of reading and thinking time added, was this. What kind of therapy is best for anxiety, and how does building trust in the relationship help the therapy work?
That one you can answer. And most of it, you'll answer in the room.