What to expect from your first therapy session With a Maryland THerapist
You’ve decided that you are ready to make a change and that it would be useful to enlist some professional support. You might be wondering what it could be like to start seeing a Maryland therapist.
What will happen in the first therapy session? How long will it take to start noticing change and feeling better? So many questions. Let me see if I can provide a few answers to start.
What will happen after you decide to schedule with a maryland therapist?
Once we have a time scheduled for a first appointment, I’ll be sending you a couple of emails. One will ask you to join the secure client portal so that I can send you all the forms that need to be filled out prior to our work together, so that once we meet we can jump in right away instead of spending time on paperwork. The other email will give you details about how we find each other at the time of our appointment, whether we are meeting in the College Park, Maryland office or meeting virtually through a secure video platform.
What do you need to do to prepare for the first session?
It will be very helpful if you come to the first session ready to talk about why you are starting therapy and what you hope to get out of it. We will work together to build our goals for our time together and can then track how we are doing on making progress towards them.
What happens in the first session?
The first session is a time to get to know a lot more about what’s bringing you in for therapy plus some history and background information. It’s also a time to see how we work together. You’ll have a chance to get a feel for my style and we will begin to lay out what the treatment goals might be and how we might get there. There’s a lot of ground to cover in the first session, but my hope is that at the end of it you will feel like I have some understanding of your situation and you will have a good idea of how I work.
Will I have homework?
It is hard to make effective change in only one 50-minute segment out of a whole week. Being able to take the things that we work on in sessions out for road tests in the real world is important. What “homework” looks like will vary from person to person and week to week. There are no grades on “homework”! It’s an invitation to grow the gains you make in sessions by working on skills, tools and changes throughout the week.
When will I have my next session?
Most clients find that weekly sessions are the most effective way to make steady, consistent progress towards their goals. Having a weekly appointment on the same day and time is the best way to make that happen (barring holidays and such). Before we end our first session, we will confirm when our next appointment will occur.
What if I don’t like what happened in the first session or I am not sure it is a good match? .
You deserve support that works for you. Our first few sessions are a time to check out the fit between us. If the fit isn’t right, I am happy to try and point you in a better direction. Not every therapist is the right fit for every client, and that’s ok! You’ll make the most effective progress with one that is the right fit for you. If there is something that you are unsure about, or have questions about, please let me know and we can talk about it.
Working with an Experienced Maryland Therapist
I hope this helps you find a therapist in Maryland that is the right fit for you. If you have additional questions, feel free to contact me to arrange for a free 15 minute phone consultation. I’d be happy to hear about what is happening and see if I can help, or point you in the right direction. If you are looking for help with anxiety treatment, mindfulness based therapy, hypnotherapy, & embodied healing, you can read more about how I can help on my specialty pages. Additional information about coaching, special events and other services, can be found through my home page.
