How do you evaluate the professional qualities of a psychologist?
When confronted with a difficulty in life, a person may not fully understand which plane their problem lies in, that is, which professional field they turn to in their case. This is especially true when it comes to mental well-being. Uncertainty and anxiety caused by a lack of knowledge can lead to the person not going anywhere and being left alone with their problem.
If there is a feeling and understanding that it is necessary to go to a psychologist, the question arises: "How can I choose from the huge numbers of psychologists the one who works with my problem? After all, what assurances are there that going to a particular specialist bear fruit? How do I know that a particular specialist is competent to deal with my particular situation? In short, one might ask, how on earth should I find or choose a psycologist in Moscow, or counsellor in Moscow, for instant?
Without belabouring the point, we will highlight a few basic points, which are worth paying attention to:
1) Education. Alas, as of today, in order to be eligible to provide psychological counseling services it is sufficient to pass a one-year professional retraining in the field of psychological counseling or a two-year master's program in psychology. There are cases where the role of a counseling psychologist is performed by a person without any education in the field, who completed, for example, two months of distance learning courses at a commercial organization. It may seem unbelievable, but it does happen. An education in the field of psychological consultation and psychotherapy is a lifelong professional education. At the same time, there is a general base, a basis from which the professional development of a psychologist begins. Training as a specialist (5 years) or bachelor with subsequent education in master's program (2 years) serves as this base. During this time, the yesterday's student has time to acquire and master knowledge about the basic laws and mechanisms of the human psyche, methods of study, the leading directions in the understanding of personality and its problems, methods of prevention and correction of mental disorders and illnesses, etc. Ideally, the quality of assimilation of acquired knowledge is subjected to systematic control; 
2) Having completed the training, a fully-fledged specialist is already capable of choosing one or another area of psychological counseling, depending on his/her preferences. Do not be shy to find out where, when and from whom a specialist was trained, in which direction he works. As a rule, this information can be found on the site of the psychological or medical center where the specialist works, or on his or her site on the Internet. Understanding which approach the specialist works within will help you to orient yourself as to whether your problem is in tune with the direction in which the psychologist is working;
3) If there is a psychologist in your institution where you work, feel free to ask him or her for advice in your search for a suitable specialist. If you fear possible gossip, tell him that you need his recommendation in finding a professional for a friend or relative. There is a chance that you will find the right specialist on your own, but it is lower than with a recommendation from a specialist;
4) Social, academic, or other status often plays a significant role in your decision when choosing a specialist, and this significantly affects the cost of admission, which is not always justified. A doctoral degree and/or the title of professor do not necessarily go hand in hand with professionalism, and at times are inversely proportional to one another. In such cases, it is wise to use common sense. Try to find out where the specialist works and what his or her responsibilities are. Thus, from the point of view of consulting and therapeutic efficiency, a crisis (emergency) psychologist with 5-7 years of experience, for example, at the Center of Emotional Problems of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, working directly with people on "the ground", will be many times more effective than a doctor of medical sciences, full professor, who is mainly engaged in organizational, methodological and managerial activity for 20 years or more. Of course, I won't absolutize, but in general the trend is clear. Is it worth overpaying 50%, 100%, and sometimes several thousand% of the cost of a consultation, for an illusory representation? It's up to you to decide;
5) You have developed a vigorous search activity on websites and forums of psychological subjects, have looked through a couple of hundreds of profiles of specialists, have asked several times for recommendations from acquaintances, colleagues, relatives and still you cannot make up your mind...What to do? Before you get discouraged, you can use the right, I would say, foolproof method. Its essence is obvious and painfully simple, but not for a person who finds himself in a difficult life situation. Every regional center has a leading profile institution of psychological and psychiatric type. In the federal centers, these are, first of all, the V.M. Bekhterev Research Institute of Psychiatry and Narcology in St. Petersburg, as well as the Serbsky Research Institute of Psychiatry and Narcology in St. Petersburg. The NSMI NPO named after Bekhterev in St. Petersburg, as well as the V.P. Serbsky Research Center for Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine in the Ministry of Health of Russia and the NSPC in Moscow. Contrary to popular belief, there are not only psychiatrists and psychotherapists in these institutions but also clinical psychologists who work, including with mentally healthy people. As a last resort, psychological hotlines are always available, free of charge;
6) The previous paragraphs were aimed to highlight those moments, which can help you to avoid meeting with a potentially incompetent in matters of psychological help, save your nerves, time and money. The honest answer to the question, "where are the safeguards?" in the title of the text is: none. Discussions and research on the topic of the effectiveness of psychotherapy have been going on for years. You will not be able to assess the actual competence of a specialist, if only because you do not understand the criteria for assessing it. The only marker of the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interaction for you is the presence of changes since the first visit. It is worth noting that these changes will not always bring peace and joy to your life. This is especially true for people close to you, who may not perceive your changes the way you would like them to. 

Since a psychologist is not a medical specialist, he or she has no legal right to diagnose or prescribe medication. He also does not pass on any information about the patient's condition to third parties, including relatives. These requirements and restrictions are defined by law in various forms and degrees of responsibility, up to a ban on private practice and work in the specialty. Thus one of the most common fears is that: "others will find out there's something wrong with me. Everyone will know that I'm..." -, has no basis in fact. 

According to a 2022 study by the World Health Organization, only 3-5% of all people experiencing psychological difficulties see a specialist. The vast majority prefer to "solve" their problems on their own. About one-third believe it is possible to share their difficulties and worries with friends and relatives. 
According to another study by the same organization, the number of anxiety and depressive disorders increased by 25% in 2021. Currently, one in eight people in our country suffers from some type of mental disorder. The dynamics of this trend are even less comforting. 
Comparing the results of these two studies, we can see that the "I can do it myself" strategy does not always work. Does this mean that work with a psychologist or psychotherapist will bring guaranteed results? Of course not. There may be a reasonable, at first glance, the question: "then why do I need to go to him?
The difference between the work of a psychologist and specialists in other professions is that when applying for and paying for services, the result largely depends on the person's own readiness and efforts to resolve the problem. 
Characteristic anecdote, where the main thought of the heroine is something like this: "I will not go to the psychologist again! This fraudster will say again for my own money that I need to take responsibility for my life! And quite often people go to a psychologist with the expectation of magical, miraculous transformations in their lives for which they do not have to make any effort. It is expected that the specialist has a unique recipe for solving life's difficulties, or that he has an extraordinary spell that will help to achieve the desired result. If the psychologist has no such tools, then perhaps he knows people who have them. 
It happens that people do not go to a psychologist for help in overcoming their current situation and circumstances, but to justify or obtain permission not to engage in this overcoming. Such people want to pay for the cost of treatment a moral indulgence which gives them the right to continue their life in a familiar, though uncomfortable vein, with a feeling of inevitability and predetermination legitimized by psychologist. 
Answering this question, it is possible to say that, first of all, the task of the psychologist is to help the person independently come to an understanding of illusory, unrealistic, dysfunctional nature of his own picture of the world or, at least, of a specific situation, which leads to what the person experiences as unpleasant, painful, too energy consuming, irritating, limiting, meaningless, destructive, etc. How does this happen?
A psychological consulting appointment is a special kind of meeting of two people in the course of which a special space or atmosphere may arise. It happens that within this space the person, maybe for the first time in his life, is met, heard, accepted by another person without prejudice, evaluation, demands, conditions and condemnation. This, in turn, allows him or her to feel more free and secure. By means of clarifying, leading, specifying questions, the psychologist together with the client clarifies the situation and makes it clear for the consultant and not so one-sided and categorical for the person. In this case, the psychologist has a dual role. On the one hand, he serves as a mirror that reflects the client's words, experiences, behavior, his typical model of relations with himself, other people and the world as a whole, which makes it possible for the latter to look at himself with a disinterested, as if distant, look. It is possible to say that with the aid of the consultant, the client gets together with himself/herself and his/her problem, clarifying together with the consultant its realism and the adequacy of his/her own actions in relation to it. 
On the other hand, with the aid of certain questions, the psychologist makes it possible for the client to see his or her life situation from a different worldview position, outside the framework of his or her attitudes, prejudices, mental patterns and constructs of thought that have been established for years or decades. As a result, a person becomes capable of posing the questions that are vitally important for him or her and need to be solved. 
Another important aspect of psychologist-client interaction is the handling of emotions and feelings. The very form of communication by the specialist becomes an unusual experience for the person who comes. The situation when one can simply be, experiencing the emotions that one has and not be shamed or ridiculed for it is perceived as something new and appealing. Through such an experience, the person begins to realize that feelings do not have an unambiguous pole, but reflect the state of his or her inner world, connected with the experience of being valued in a particular situation. It becomes clear to the client that feelings act as an indicator of how good he or she feels in the conditions in which he or she is with the opportunities he or she has.
Having dealt with the psychologist's help in his own thoughts, having seen false, dysfunctional, pseudological attitudes and beliefs and having allowed himself to live through his feelings, the person becomes capable of building more adequate and productive forms of behavior and their practical implementation. 
Thus, to summarize briefly, it is possible to say that, paradoxically, the title of the article accurately reflects the essence of work on the problem. The client really solves it. At the same time, the task of the psychologist is not to solve problems of another person, whom he or she does not know. The psychologist, using skills acquired during extensive training and experience of practical work, as well as experience of personal therapeutic practice in the role of the person who comes to him/her for help, accompanies the client on his/her way where he/she independently discovers paths, nooks and crannies, detours or, conversely, discovers straight broad routes previously concealed by thinking patterns, habits and protections.