So You Want To Be A Psychotherapist

Linda Soules shows ages 10 to 12 that a psychotherapist’s main instrument is careful attention in a quiet space with two chairs, not a machine or a couch. Parents reading along will find that framing useful at home as well.

The book walks through the whole shape of the work: what a session sounds like, confidentiality and the boundaries that protect the hour, and the many roads in, from counselors and social workers to psychologists and psychiatrists. It explains approaches like CBT and EMDR, clinical notes, supervision, and play tools such as sand trays and puppets for children who cannot yet name a feeling. There are profiles of figures like Carl Rogers, Mamie Phipps Clark, and Marsha Linehan, a day-in-the-life walkthrough, a glossary, and a closing self-check. The school counselor pages stand out for families: knocking on that door needs only something on your mind, not a full crisis.

Soules' voice stays plain and close, more conversation than lecture, built from small office facts that stick: the hallway white noise machine, the tissue box left within reach, the fifty-minute session. Illustrations give young readers a visual hold on the setting while adults pause to talk. In the So You Want To Be A series, this title treats mental health care as ordinary, not strange or shameful.

The book's strength lies in treating a school counselor's office and a psychiatrist's with equal narrative weight, which quietly corrects the assumption that therapy is only for crisis.

Give it to the kid who already holds a silence longer than friends expect, and keep it nearby for the adult who wants steady language for those talks.