Ironically, I never jumped into the tech industry because of my mental health (though I couldn't articulate it that way back when I decided to go to college for

Ironically, I never jumped into the tech industry because of my mental health (though I couldn't articulate it that way back when I decided to go to college for something else, and I do program as a freelancer - I just won't be a tech employee). Still, I can understand having a specific experience you need understood: I got diagnosed with MS my last semester of grad school, so I had to cope with losing any hope of a normal career path, accepting that I was probably going to slowly lose physical capacity, etc. I needed someone who could work within that framework. (For example, imagine trying therapy where part of the worldview is 'you don't know the future/the future will be better'. That's just plain GASLIGHTING in my case!) Regarding tech specific issues, I'd try to come up with a sense of what you need understood and a few questions whose answers would let you determine if the person groks where you're coming from. Things I can think of are: - The hypercompetitiveness and lack of stability in the tech industry. Leaving jobs every year or two is common, as is having a ton of your compensation be in stocks, the companies themselves failing fairly often, etc. It's hard to re-establish a sense of safety if your life is not stable + routine is difficult. - The libertarian/bootstraps type worldview in SV + adjacent types (primarily due to filter bubbles + survivorship bias) can combine with PTSD to create some really, really nasty thought patterns. - The therapist needs to understand systems thinking. I know a lot of my problems come from the fact that I can't turn that approach to things off, which means I both spend a lot of time stressing about system-wide problems I can't do anything about and I don't spend enough time creating heuristics. I try to look at using systems-thinking too much in my daily life is like looking directly at the sun or not wearing earplugs at a concert: Just because I can do something doesn't mean it's the best idea for my long-term health. It's very slow going. But you'd need someone who can understand getting lost in (and genuinely distressed by) these large issues.