What Happens in the First Session

In your first therapy session, we will discuss what brings you in to therapy. Prior to coming in, you will complete the intake paperwork. The goal here really is to determine what goals you want to work on and begin to create new ways of thinking about the problem. The first session is the “tell me everything” session so that I can better understand your world and the people that are involved in it. Sometimes people like to go through a timeline of events and others like to start with what recently happened that led to reaching out. There is no right or wrong way to start therapy!

My hope for your first session is that you walk away feeling lighter, feeling like we have a plan for healing, and also have a few new skills that you can use before your next session. There are times when homework is assigned to help continue to build on what was discussed in session, but there are no grades or judgment if the task is not completed. Each person moves and grooves in a different way, and being able to collaborate on what makes the most sense for each client I work with is essential to me.

The last thing that I feel is so important in the first session is talking about self-care. Self-care is one of the most overlooked things when it comes to healing. When coming to therapy, you are bringing up a lot of past heavy stuff (feelings, memories, ideas) from the past and that can be difficult to do. Creating moments of self-care to ensure that you are pouring back into yourself is so important. We will discuss what this looks like and how we can slowly implement these tasks into your daily routine.