We begin with an initial consultation. The purpose of this meeting is to make sure that we are both comfortable with each other and that I am the best therapist for you. I would determine this by comparing your treatment goals and what I think you may need from Psychotherapy to my scope of practice and my areas of competence.
If you were currently in psychotherapy with another mental health professional, I would not provide psychotherapy services to you until that treatment officially ended. You would also need to review and sign a series of documents related to my business practices, including the fee and cancellation policies, the “No Secrets” policy, and the management of your healthcare information.
Prior to your first psychotherapy session, I will ask you to write down the problem(s) you want to work on and bring them to your first session. If you couldn’t do this, it would be okay—not everyone knows specifically why they want to begin psychotherapy. Regardless, you and I would work together during your initial sessions to clarify your goals and develop a treatment plan. This plan could be adjusted during the course of your psychotherapy as needed.
Also during your initial sessions, we would discuss your current and past physical and mental health conditions. I would need to know about any medications and ongoing treatments by other healthcare professionals. I would request that you sign a release of information for each of your doctors so that I could coordinate your care with them as needed. I would ask about your relationship and family-of-origin histories, your career development, your sexual history, your legal circumstances (if any), and any significant life events.
Talking about your family history could be uncomfortable for you because emotions from your past may surface, and this would be very normal. For instance, you might begin remembering past trauma if it happened to you. If this happened, I would help you work through your pain and struggles to talk about this and anything else that might be hard for you to disclose.
Gathering information about your life history usually requires several sessions. It would be vital that I know as much as possible about you for several reasons: to understand you better; to build a connection between us; to make a preliminary diagnosis, and to develop a treatment plan. Again, everything you say could be helpful to us in understanding why you behave and think and feel and relate the way you do.
I’ll encourage you to talk freely and at your own pace about thoughts and feelings that come up about psychotherapy or about working with me. These feelings are important because aspects of your earliest affections and hostilities toward your parents and siblings can be shifted onto me and the psychotherapy process. This is known as “transference,” and this experience offers us a way of understanding what happened to you during childhood.
Except for emergencies or dangerous situations, I usually won’t tell you how to live your life or tell you to leave or stay in a relationship. Questions like “What would you personally do/think/feel in my situation? …or “What’s your personal opinion? ” are important, but rather than giving you direct answers, if you ask me such questions, I would help you explore your options.
