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Why Finding a Therapist You Actually Connect With Feels So Hard in 2026

A personal observation by Kurtis Stevenson, Marketing Manager — Eterna Counselling & Wellness

I'm Kurtis, the Marketing Manager at Eterna Counselling & Wellness in Abbotsford, BC. I've spent the better part of three years watching the mental health industry from the inside. I'm not a therapist. What I am is someone who pays close attention — to what people search for, what they're afraid of, and how the conversation around mental health is shifting in real time. My writing draws on consumer behaviour, social media trends, and the honest gaps I notice between what people need and what they actually do. When I write about therapy, I write as a marketing professional and industry observer, not a clinician — and I think that perspective is worth something.

I'm not a therapist. I'm not writing this as advice. I'm writing this as someone who works inside the

mental health industry, watches the trends, and has started noticing something that I think is worth

talking about honestly.

What You'll Learn

  • What I keep seeing from inside a counselling practice in 2026

  • How COVID quietly changed the way Canadians relate to being around other

  • people — and what the data says

  • What social media and AI are doing to our expectations of real human relationships

  • Why the numbers around AI and mental health genuinely concern me

  • Why "I couldn't find a therapist I connected with" deserves a more honest

  • conversation

I'm not a therapist. I'm not writing this as advice. I'm writing this as someone who works inside the mental health industry, watches the trends, and has started noticing something that I think is worth talking about honestly.

I've been working as the marketing manager at Eterna Counselling & Wellness in Abbotsford for a while now. I don't sit with clients, I don't run sessions, and I'm not here to tell anyone what to do with their mental health.

What I do is pay attention. I watch what people search for. I watch how the conversation around mental health shifts. I talk with the therapists on our team about what they're noticing. And I have people in my life who have gone looking for a therapist and come back empty handed — not because there weren't options, but because nothing clicked.

That pattern keeps showing up. And I think it's worth talking about.

People Want Therapy. They Just Can't Find Someone Who Feels Right.

I've personally noticed this more in the last two or three years than ever before. People are more open to therapy than any other generation before them. The stigma has dropped significantly. People know the language. They know they need support.

And still, so many of them get stuck in this loop of booking a consultation, feeling like it wasn't quite right, and then quietly giving up.

I don't think that's a coincidence. I think something has genuinely changed in the way we connect with other human beings. And I think two things in particular are driving it.

The first is COVID. The second is what social media and AI have done to our expectations of what connection is supposed to feel like.

What COVID Actually Did to Us

I watched this happen in real time and I feel like not enough people are still talking about it.

March 2020. Everything went virtual overnight. Work, school, family, therapy. And for a while it felt like a temporary thing — like we'd get back to normal once it was over.

But a lot of us didn't fully go back.

The data reflects that. Research from the OECD published in 2025 found that national data from Canada suggests elevated levels of loneliness persisted into 2023 and 2024, well past any lockdown. And it wasn't just older adults. Men and young people — groups previously considered at lower risk — saw some of the largest deteriorations in social connection. In fact, Canadian data from 2024 found that young people aged 15 to 24 were almost twice as likely as those aged 65 and over to report feeling lonely always or often.

I find that part really striking. Because those are the exact groups I see struggling the most to take the step toward booking therapy.

What I personally feel happened is that spending two or more years keeping our entire emotional lives inside our homes quietly shifted what normal social effort feels like. Leaving the house became a choice. Meeting strangers became optional. Being in a room with someone you don't know became something that required more energy than it used to.

And therapy requires exactly that. You're in a room with someone you've never met, being asked to talk about the things you find hardest to say out loud. That's not a small ask. And I think for a lot of people right now, the bar for that kind of in-person vulnerability has gone up in a way that snuck up on them.

Why Finding a Therapist You Actually Connect With Feels So Hard in 2026 Kurtis Stevenson, Marketing Manager — Eterna Counselling & Wellness, Abbotsford, BC

What Social Media Did to Our Expectations

This is something I notice almost every day working in marketing, and I think it's worth naming plainly.

Therapists are everywhere on social media now. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. And a lot of that content is genuinely good. It's making mental health concepts accessible to people who would never have found them otherwise. I have people in my life who started understanding their own anxiety better because of a 60-second video.

That's real value.

But something unintended has also happened.

People are forming a relationship with a therapist before they ever book a session. They've watched someone's content for months. They know how that person talks, what they find funny, how they explain things. They feel comfortable with them already.

And then they sit down with an actual therapist in an actual room, and that person is a real human who might phrase something a bit awkwardly, or take the conversation somewhere unexpected, or just feel different from the warm, edited version they'd been watching on a screen.

And they decide it's not the right fit.

I'm not saying fit doesn't matter. It genuinely does. But I feel as if the baseline we're now comparing real therapists to is a highlight reel. And real human connection — the kind that actually helps people — has never looked like a highlight reel.

The AI Thing. This One I Think About a Lot.

I want to be upfront that I'm not qualified to give clinical opinions on this. But I track industry trends as part of my job, and the numbers around AI and mental health are something I can't just scroll past.

An earlier RAND study from late 2025 found that about 1 in 8 adolescents and young adults in the US were using AI chatbots for mental health advice, with use most common among those aged 18 to 21. That number has already grown. A follow-up study published in JAMA Pediatrics in June 2026 found that nearly 1 in 5 adolescents and young adults — an estimated 8.2 million people — reported using ChatGPT, Gemini, Character.AI, or Meta AI for mental health help when feeling stressed, angry, or sad.

What I also keep sitting with is the fear-of-judgment piece. Separate research from 2026 found that 35% of people say they avoid seeking help not because support is unavailable, but because they don't feel emotionally safe opening up to another person.

I have people in my life who relate to that. And honestly, I get it. A chatbot is there at 2am. It doesn't have a reaction you have to manage. It doesn't make you feel like you're too much or not enough. That's real, and I don't want to dismiss it.

But the question I keep sitting with is this: if we keep practising emotional openness with AI instead of with people, does connecting with real people get easier over time? Or harder?

I don't have the clinical answer to that. What I do know is that the research consistently points to the human relationship itself as one of the most important parts of what makes therapy work. The connection between two people isn't a nice bonus — it appears to be a big part of how healing actually happens.

A chatbot can't replicate that. And the safety data is worth knowing about too. Research has raised real concerns about the quality of crisis support AI tools provide — these platforms are not regulated or licensed for mental health treatment. Most people using them don't know that.

So Why Is Finding the Right Therapist So Hard?

Here's my honest take, for what it's worth.

I think a lot of people in 2026 are looking for a therapist who will feel immediately comfortable. Someone who matches the warmth of a content creator they love, available with the ease of an app, without the awkwardness of being known by someone new.

And that's not really how it works.

First sessions are almost always a bit awkward. You're a stranger talking to another stranger about things that are hard to say. That takes time to find a rhythm. I personally feel like we've started treating that normal awkwardness as a sign that someone isn't the right fit — when really it's just what the beginning of any real relationship feels like.

COVID made in-person vulnerability harder for a lot of us. Social media raised what we expect warmth to look like. And AI has given us something that feels like emotional openness but without the part where another real person sees you and responds.

That's a lot working against us before we even walk into a therapy office.

Why I'm Writing This

My job is to help people find their way to Eterna when they need support. But I'd feel dishonest if I only wrote polished content about how great therapy is and left it at that.

The reality I see every day is more complicated. People are struggling. A lot of them have tried to find a therapist, didn't feel a connection, and quietly concluded it just isn't for them. And I think some of those people deserve to hear something more honest than "just keep looking."

The difficulty connecting might not mean therapy isn't for you. It might mean we're all living through something that has made human connection genuinely harder than it used to be. That's not a personal failure. It's just the world we're in right now.

If you've been thinking about therapy and haven't taken the step — or if you've tried and it didn't feel right — I'd encourage you to meet the team at Eterna and see if anyone feels like a starting point. We also have a free therapist match quiz that takes a few minutes and helps narrow things down based on what you're actually looking for.

That's the best I can offer. And it's offered honestly.

FAQ SECTION

Why is it so hard to find a therapist you connect with in 2026? A few things seem to be working against us at the same time. Post-COVID life made in-person vulnerability harder for a lot of people. Social media raised what we expect connection to feel and look like. And AI has made it easier to practise emotional openness with a machine rather than with a person. None of that is a character flaw. It's just where we are.

Is it normal to try more than one therapist before finding the right one? From what I see working in this industry, yes, it happens a lot. Fit genuinely matters. But it's also worth asking whether a session felt off because of a real mismatch — or because first sessions are just a bit awkward by nature, and that's true with any new relationship.

Are AI chatbots okay to use for mental health support? I'm not qualified to answer this clinically. What the data shows is that AI chatbots are not regulated or licensed for mental health treatment, and research has raised real concerns about the quality of support they provide in crisis situations. For day-to-day reflection, I understand why people use them. For anything more serious, the research points toward human support.

Did COVID actually change how Canadians connect with each other? The data suggests it did, and for longer than most people expected. OECD research published in 2025 found that national data from Canada shows elevated levels of loneliness persisted into 2023 and 2024, long after lockdowns ended.

How do I find a therapist in Abbotsford who might actually be a good fit? Start by browsing therapist profiles or reaching out to us at admin@eternacounselling.ca. You can also visit eternacounselling.ca to learn more about our team and the areas they work in.


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