Finding a therapist and type of therapy that perfectly suits you the first time around is always going to be hard.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s certainly possible. But whether you’re looking for someone who’s a CBT expert or prefer to go down the counselling route, finding a person who encompasses all the values, skills and personality traits you have in mind – and pairing that with a form of therapy that suits you and your mental health – is often a difficult task. In fact, 30-40% of people do not recover after a first-line mental health treatment, according to Psychology Today.

What these statistics do not mean is that people who don’t find their first treatment effective will never find something that works for them – in fact, according to a new study published in Clinical Psychology Review, psychotherapy remains an effective tool for “non-responders” (aka people who didn’t respond to their first form of treatment).

The research, conducted by a team of psychologists at the University of Basel in Switzerland, reviewed 18 psychotherapy control trials with 1,734 non-responders. What they concluded was simple: therapy is usually very successful in treating those who don’t benefit from a previous psychological treatment.

Why you should always retry therapy if it doesn’t work the first time around