If your stress levels are so high that you can’t see your way ahead, and camomile tea and warm baths aren’t helping, you may want to seek professional help. But you could easily feel overwhelmed by the choice of counselling available. Would you benefit from Gestalt? Or are you more the cognitive behavioural type? There are hundreds of therapies out there, but the style of therapy is not what is important — it’s finding the right therapist that matters.

“Research shows that therapies are all about 73 to 74 per cent successful, so the style of therapy is less important than the quality of the therapist,” says Phillip Hodson, fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). “But you need to choose them with enormous care.”

So where do you start? Before choosing a therapist, it’s worth knowing that the terms “counsellor” and “therapist” are often interchangeable. Traditionally, people offering short-term help to patients or clients — especially in the voluntary sector — tended to call themselves counsellors, while those who had trained on a psychotherapy course would call themselves psychotherapists. But these days a lot of psychotherapists refer to themselves as counsellors, in the belief that the term is less intimidating.

“The goals are the same — you’re trying to effect change in the person’s life, to help them to experience feelings they’re afraid of and to manage them, and to put into perspective some of the losses they may have experienced,” Hodson says.

“It’s horses for courses — there are styles of therapy to fit every type of personality. If you are concrete in your thinking, a rationalist who doesn’t like novels, then I would suggest a more behavioural, cognitive process. But if you were more spiritual, and reckon it’s significant that your father was a bully, then a more analytical, psychodynamic approach is going to suit you better.

“My best metaphor is that it’s like foster parenting — someone who offers stability, security, and a kind of love.”

Depending on availability, your GP may be able to refer you to a counsellor on the NHS. The Government has announced funding for hundreds more cognitive behavioural therapists, on top of 10,000 already promised. Cognitive behavioural therapy is a short-term treatment based on the idea that negative thinking can trigger problems such as depression and anxiety. The therapist helps to identify these negative thoughts and view things more positively. This approach can help with conditions ranging from depression to phobias and eating disorders.

Cognitive behavioural therapy is favoured by the Government because a course of treatment lasts between six and 16 sessions and is, therefore, less costly than many therapies. But it is not, despite the media hype, a miracle treatment. Lord Layard, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the LSE, who has done a great deal of research into happiness and is behind the expansion of this therapy, estimates that it will help about half of those treated. There is also a waiting list of several months.

Possibly, you may prefer to go private.

If so, it’s best not to simply stick a pin in the phonebook — refer to the BACP website for a list of practitioners who are bound by its ethical and professional codes. The BACP recommends “auditioning” your therapist. If he or she is ethical, he or she should offer you an assessment session, which may or may not be free. In that session you should find out how long the course of therapy is expected to last, and how much it will cost (anything between £10 and £80-plus). You should also learn about the therapist’s qualifications and experience. Most importantly, both of you can work out whether it’s possible to work well together. “If, at the end of the session, you get a feeling that you are not going to get on with this person then don’t go back,” Hodson says. If you lack confidence in your counsellor, you’re not going to work together well, so find someone else who is more suitable for you. “The one caveat,” he says, “is if you get that feeling after seeing every therapist. Then it is more about you and the fact that you are resistant to therapy.”

Therapy isn’t for everyone, Hodson says. “And it’s not for every time either. Life is full of unavoidable unhappiness. There’s no cure for life, and therapy is hard work for everyone concerned.

Your family and friends are the best resort for the problems of life — therapy comes in when normal methods aren’t working.”

Choose your therapy

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
This combines cognitive and behavioural techniques. Clients are taught ways to change their thoughts and expectations.

Gestalt therapy
The client gains self-awareness by analysing behaviour and body language, and giving expression to repressed feelings.

Person-centred counselling
The client is allowed to freely express his or her emotions, coming to terms with negative feelings, and perceiving him or herself as a person with the power to change.

Psychoanalysis
Based on Sigmund Freud’s theories that the unacceptable thoughts and feelings of early childhood are banished to the unconscious mind but continue to influence us. The analyst seeks to interpret these feelings and make them acceptable to the client’s conscious mind. Can be a lengthy process.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy/counselling
This method emphasises the unconscious and past experience in determining current behaviour, this approach is derived from psychoanalysis, but usually provides quicker solutions.

Solution-focused brief therapy
This style focuses on positive change rather than past problems. Clients are encouraged to think about what they do well, set goals and work out how to achieve them. As few as three or four sessions may be needed.

Systemic therapies
These aim to effect a change in the way those taking part deal with each other. It can be a generic term for family therapy.

Transactional analysis
This is based on the belief that everyone has a child, adult and parent self within them and, within each social interaction, one self predominates. By recognising these roles, a client can choose which one to adopt and so change behaviour.

For a list of therapists, contact the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, BACP, bacp.co.uk, 01455 883316; Mind, mind.org.uk, 0845 7660163