I want a therapist who is highly trained, highly intelligent, and not afraid to tangle with me when I am loaded for bear. I've taught rhetoric and writing and some logic and philosophy, and I can be very persuasive and manipulative when I am depressed. I have to think the T is smarter than I am, or I will blow off what is presented to me.

A friend of mine once told me "Your therapist does not have to be smarter than you are, just a better therapist than you are." She is right, but I am just being honest when I reflect on the fact that when I am depressed and not thinking productively, I am very good at dismissing and rationalizing, so as long as I feel like I've met my match, I will still listen.

Sounds arrogant, I guess, but through my whole life I have used intelligence and humor as weapons to contain my bipolar and PTSD.