By Courtney Grove, MA, Associate MFT (cgrove@sdicouples.com)
You’ve done the hard work of finding, researching, and maybe interviewing therapists to find the best fit for you or your relationship. What happens now?
At the beginning of the first session, the therapist will start by reviewing the “informed consent form.” We want you to understand the therapy process and this will cover the costs, cancellation policies, confidentiality, and other information to ensure that you know what to expect as you begin your counseling sessions. To save time, we will email our forms to you so you may complete them ahead of your first session. The forms will then be sent back to your therapist who will have time to review your information so they may come to your first session ready and prepared to help you.
After this, the therapist may ask a variation of the question, “What is happening and why now?” We are trying to understand what brought you to therapy, and what made you choose to come at this particular point in time. We will also ask questions about your current life situation and if applicable, your relationships. This information helps the therapist to assess your needs, both to ensure that they will be a good fit for you and to better understand who you are and what you need. Other questions you can expect us to ask are your personal history, the family you grew up in, and who you were close to when you were growing up. The questions we ask play an important role in who you are and how you interact with the people in your adult life. Finally, we want to hear what your goals are for your therapy, and what you may have tried in the past to meet your goals. We care about you and your ultimate healing and success thus your therapist is always open to questions you might have at any given point in your therapy but especially at the beginning.
Success in therapy is mainly based on your participation, willingness, and honesty. If for whatever reason you’re afraid that you won’t be able to be clear, it can help to write down what you’re struggling with prior to your sessions. Please know that the first session won’t bring automatic healing. Therapy is a process, and not a quick fix, although we do try to work as quickly as possible to help you resolve your issues. The process of therapy requires vulnerability, trust, honesty, and consistency. Therapy may require coming back even when it hurts, or even when you start to feel a little better.
We look forward to meeting you and starting the process of working together to create the life that you’re happy to be living. It starts with your brave decision to reach out! At SDICF, we know how to help.