What to Expect in Your Counselling Sessions
What to Expect in Your Counselling Sessions.
Making the decision to attend counselling is a positive step and can offer support beyond what is available from family or friends.
Therapy can help people overcome obstacles to their well-being. It can increase positive feelings, such as compassion and self-esteem. People in therapy can learn skills for handling difficult situations, making healthy decisions, and reaching goals. Many find they enjoy the therapeutic journey of becoming more self-aware. Some people even go to ongoing therapy for self-growth.
It could be time to seek therapy if an issue causes distress or interferes with daily life. Distress can mean negative thoughts, feelings, behaviors, or even a bodily sensation such as pain or fatigue. It is important not to wait until symptoms become severe before going to therapy. It may be best to seek therapy if you are often unhappy or feel overwhelmed and hopeless about issues in your life. Therapy can also help if you cannot focus on work or school, experience addiction, or feel like hurting yourself or someone else.
Some people may avoid treatment, and there are many reasons for this. Some of these reasons include:
Worry about the stigma that can come with mental health care
Feelings of shame when speaking about past hurts
Not wanting to acknowledge that anything is wrong
Fear that discussions in treatment will not stay confidential
Money issues
However, statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) show mental health issues are common. In fact, 1 in 5 adults may be affected. It may help to remember that therapists are trained professionals who provide support and maintain confidentiality.
First Contact
You can book online, call, or email me to book your first appointment. After you book, I’ll send you my intake and consent forms to fill out prior to your appointment. This helps me take care of the necessary paperwork ahead of time and helps me get some details before you arrive.
First Session
Your first session will be 50 minutes. During our first session, we’ll explore our compatibility as well as your expectations.
Your first session is considered a consultation meeting. It gives me the opportunity to get to know your history, your concerns, and the goals you’d like to reach. Together, we develop a treatment plan. This session is also for you to get to know who I am and how I work, so that you can decide if we’re a good fit.
Before attending your first counselling , it may be helpful to prepare by writing down your reasons for seeking help. This will make describing your feelings to me more comfortable.
Here are some questions that I may ask in our sessions:
Personal and Family History
I like to know what life was like growing up, and how clients got to where they are today. This can be a short or lengthy discussion. I believe that our personal and family history have a strong influence on our development and I like to know how people came to be where they are now. I usually suggest that clients tell me their story – however, they want to tell it – in as much or a little detail as they feel comfortable.
Mental and Physical Health History
I like to know the history of a client’s mental and physical health. What has your health been like throughout your life? Do you deal with any chronic mental or physical health conditions? Does anyone else in your family deal with any of these conditions?
Another question I often ask is, “When is the last time you saw your family doctor? When is the last time you got a checkup and bloodwork done?” This may sound overly-medical for a counsellor to be asking, but it’s important. If you’re coming in because you’re feeling depressed, anxious, or otherwise, I want to make sure that there isn’t a physiological problem at the root of your symptoms. There are many physiological issues that have symptoms that can masquerade as psychological or psychiatric issues. If you are dehydrated, have a thyroid imbalance, your blood sugar is off, iron is low, etc., these can all cause symptoms that look like a mental health issue. The last thing I want for you is to treat something as psychological if there’s a physiological cause.
Now, these areas not mutually exclusive conditions either. You may have a physiological issue and also be struggling with a psychological issue. We want to cover all of our bases.
What Brought You To Counselling
This may seem like an obvious question, but it’s also an important one. We all struggle with various things in life, it’s the joy of being human. I want to know what it is that brought you in today, what are the challenges, how did they start, and my favourite question, “Why now?” What made you decide to come get some help now, particularly if this has been an ongoing thing for a while. This question is important because it clarifies what is the key issue that you are experiencing, and what your motivation level is, and what is specifically motivating you to get help now.
How To Measure Success
I often ask clients, “If this works, what will be different?” I want to know what your goals are and how they’ll gauge if counselling is a success. This both handles the goal setting, and how to find out if the counselling process is working. My goals and metrics may not be what my client is going to use. I want to know what your gauge is. This doesn’t mean I don’t have my own tools and metrics for the process (I do), but it gives us a common language to monitor the relationship and the process on an ongoing basis. It helps us answer the question I ask pretty regularly with clients, “How’s this going for you? Is this helpful?”
What Do I Need To Know About You For This To Work
We are all unique. We have our idiosyncrasies, oddities, preferences, hot button issues, and more. I’m no different. I want to know what is going to help you in the process, help us build the relationship, and help you feel safe and supported while trying to avoid things that do the opposite. Some people need a very gentle approach, others need a straight shooter. Some are very wary of a particular gender because of past experiences, others aren’t. I want to know these things so I can be the best help I can be for you.
Things To Know About Counselling As A Client
As a Registered Psychologist, I want your experience to be as positive and helpful as possible. It’s important to know, however, that counselling is a team effort. Psychologists aren’t magicians with a magic wand that can fix all that ails you. The process works through the development of a safe therapeutic relationship and a joint effort to move forward. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you start your counselling journey.
Your Psychologist Cannot Read Your Mind
Some of you who have been to counselling before may laugh at this, and I know that I’ve had clients who were relatively convinced I had this magical power based on some of my interactions with them. We have intuition, not mind-reading powers. What this means is, it takes two active participants in a counselling session to get to where we’re trying to go. If you’re not an active participant, the process is very difficult if not impossible.
Being Open and Honest Are Important
We know this is a big ask of you. It’s not easy to sit down with a stranger and talk about the difficult parts of life. However, the counselling process needs this. If we can’t be open with each other, we can’t work together and create a safe space to wrestle with life. It’s not all-or-nothing. It takes time, and you don’t have to be an open book from the first minute. Build the relationship, and share as you go. We’re in this together.
Try To Know What It Is You Want From The Session
This is sometimes a difficult one. I know that I often struggle to know what I want out of a session with my psychologist, but part of that is because I have a standing appointment that I go to every month regardless of how I am feeling that day because that’s what works best for me. Some of the questions I’ve outlined above can also be used on an ongoing basis to figure out goals and focus points, but it’s always helpful when clients know what they want to focus on in the session. It helps keep the process on track.
Ask The Counsellor Questions
Sometimes clients are surprised when I turn the tables and ask them if they have questions for me! As I mentioned above, counselling is a two-person endeavour and process. If I need to get to know you, it only stands to reason that you should get to know me as well. Ask away! The fit between a counsellor and client is important and getting to know each other helps us figure out if we’re the right fit. I always encourage clients to ask whatever questions they want, with the caveat that I may choose to decline to answer questions of a personal nature if they go beyond what I choose to reveal to clients about myself or my personal life. Every psychologist is different in this area but feel free to ask. You may want to ask about experience, qualifications, approach, personality, or things like hobbies, etc.
Give Me Feedback
I always tell my clients, and then remind them periodically, that I need their feedback. Going back to my inability to read minds, I need feedback to know if we’re on the right track, if I’m focusing on the right things, and if things are helpful. Sometimes clients are afraid to tell the counsellor if they feel the process isn’t going in the direction they want or isn’t working. I absolutely want to know these things. I’d rather find out that something is off than continue believing all is well only to find out after the fact that it wasn’t helpful. I also want to know what is working so we can do more of that!
Counselling Is A Journey
I know that going to see a psychologist for the first time can be anxiety-provoking. I promise it’s not as scary, and we’re not as weird as you might think. We’re just regular people too, who have some training and experience to help you through some of life’s challenges. If we keep some of the above in mind and are open with each other, we can find a path through the challenges and help you thrive!
The Risk and Benefits of Counselling
The main way we achieve the goals of psychotherapy is by talking together. Clients are most likely to improve if they trust their therapist, feel understood by their therapist and experience a genuine concern and support from their therapist. Clients can facilitate this by disclosing any concerns they have about psychotherapy or about the therapist’s perceptions or comments.
Therapy, to be successful, will require change of some kind. It might a change in how some of your thinking is (such as from “black and white” thinking to being able to see shades of gray in between) or in some of your behaviors (in anxiety, you might eventually be asked to do the very thing that scares you). Change is uncomfortable and all change involves loss, even if it is good change.
Often times, things get worse before they improve. Because therapy often means focusing on and talking about unpleasant or painful issues, in the near-term therapy can cause an increase in symptoms. Focusing on the painful issue or finding that your problem seems to be worsening at that time can be upsetting to you as a client. Or if you see for the first time that you played a role in the problem, this could be upsetting. These feelings should be only temporary and we will measure where you are at each week so that we can see clearly how therapy is going.
Therapy is not free and there is no guarantee that it will work or how quickly it will work. Although the American Psychological Association states “the average person who engages in psychotherapy is better off by the end of treatment than 80 percent of those who don’t receive treatment at all” you might be one of the exceptions to this finding. By measuring where you are at each session, we will minimize this risk. Please know that a lack of success with one therapist does not mean you will not be successful with a different therapist; the relationship between counselor and client is a key component of the outcome. Some therapist/client “fits” are better than others. You may get very different results with two different therapists.