I would recommend the therapist listings PsychologyToday.org to those who are thinking about therapy. They are very detailed. They tell what kind of insurance the therapist takes, what his or her approach is, and what kind of patients s/he is open to working with. They seem to encompass the US and Canada. I believe in some cases the credentials of the therapist have been checked.
A lot of people need therapy. You have to be careful though because about half of therapists have their own problems. That number is even higher for some types of therapists. Basically, Ph.D's from real universities tend to the the best at talk therapy although half of them may be troubled and not the best choices. Watch out for Ph.D's who have their degrees from a correspondence school, online university or "diploma mill" i.e., a school that just churns out graduates. Many of those may be questionable but there can be a few who are fine. 9 out of 10 Psy.D.'s are unstable. They can seem o.k. for a little while but start to unravel like a cheap suit in a very short time. The tenth Psy.D. is fine but you don't want to sort through the other nine to get to them. Unless you have very good reasons to trust a Psy.D,. watch out. This is based on experiences in the US.
Psychiatrists are M.D.'s who specialize in mental health. Most of them tend to be interested in drugging and labeling people. They may give a little advice too. Very few are interested in, capable of, or adequately trained in talk therapy. There can be a few who are. If they are male, they may have a hard time listening to patients talk for any length of time. There can be exceptions to this. Generally male therapists of any stripe have a higher incidence of being unable to pay attention to patients talk for any length of time, but this isn't universal.
There are counselors who don't have doctorates. In my experience, most of them are ambivalent about being in a helping profession. People with doctorates make so much more money that if people were really interested, they'd go ahead and get the doctorate. Not to say that non-doctorate counselors are never useful, but if you find that person to be inadequate or a mixed blessing, you wouldn't be the first. If that's all you have access to, try them. They have helped some people. In the old days, women were excluded from mental health doctoral programs. Because of this there were clinical social workers who were really good, but most of those have retired now.
