Counselling and Psychotherapy: What to Expect

First Session

A first session may last about about 75 minutes so you have time to fully express why you have come and what changes you are seeking. I will also want to gather information on you, your immediate family and social supports, as well as on your strengths, interests, and values – that is, what is important to you as a person and makes life worth living. If you come seeking help for depression or anxiety, I may ask you to take a test so that we can determine a base line to measure success in relieving symptoms and approaching goals.

Second and Subsequent Sessions

"When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals; adjust the action steps."
~ Confucius

In a second session we review the reasons you have come to counselling and psychotherapy. We then collaboratively set goals and devise the strategies and steps to help you will reach them. (Goals and strategies often change depending on your progress or on new and deeper issues that may arise.) Building the motivation and courage to make positive change and learn new behaviours is an essential part of subsequent sessions. Becoming more deeply aware of your thoughts and emotions and typical ways of assessing and reacting to important relationships, challenges, and life circumstances are essential aspects of each session. Feedback from you to me and from me to you are critical components of the process, as we measure change and celebrate successes or recalibrate and search for alternative solutions.

A Special Kind of Conversation

Psychoeducation (for example on depression, anxiety, emotions, abusive relationships, assertiveness, grief and how the body stores traumatic experience and reacts to traumatic triggering) is an important component of counselling and psychotherapy. The conversation may turn on homework which may consist of keeping a journal, noticing changes at home and at work, and incorporating exercise, meditation, and social activity into your daily life. When progress towards goals is achieved the conversation turns to what worked well and why and how to continue with and maintain healthy change.

"This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. "
~ Rumi