We understand it can be a little scary or intimidating to schedule your first therapist session! So, we wanted to spend a moment today talking about what you can expect during that session to create some confidence in the process.
Explain Your Rights
During an intake (or first) session, our therapist’s will cover the high points from the intake paperwork. This includes explaining what your rights are in therapy, the parameters or rules of our practitioners, and the limits of confidentiality for a therapy. Our therapists will always check in to answer any questions that you may have and ensure that you know that our sessions are a safe place for you to ask those questions whenever they arise.
Get to Know You
Throughout the rest of the intake session, your therapist will get to know you, what it is that brings you to therapy, your goals for your time together, and what kind of strengths and attributes you bring to the therapeutic process. Your therapist will close a session explaining how we think we can assist with your unique problems. From there, it is your decision whether you feel like we’re a good fit for what you’re bringing him to the therapy room. If you decide to reschedule with your therapist, sessions moving forward will focus on interventions that are relevant to your specific therapy goals. This will include a continual assessment process of how you are feeling and functioning each time that we meet, how you are relating to the issues you initially outlined, and how you are identifying progress as we move through therapy.
Offer Practical Tools
We will also pass along practical tools that will help you navigate the current circumstances in life and discuss ways to expand your perspective on what you are currently working through. Therapists may not use all of these interventions as we do work to ensure that the therapeutic process fits for the client in front of us. Therapy at Solid Ground will be incredibly collaborative, since one of our foundational beliefs is that clients are the expert in their own lives. We, as the therapist, are here to provide support, clarity, and an outside set of eyes on the situations that are relevant to you. We believe in your insight into your own life!
What We Won’t Do
You’ll never find our therapists:
- providing advice on what you should do
- telling you exactly how to handle a specific situation
- providing any guidance regarding legal issues
We can help you process how different options could turn out, your feelings about those options, and the mental/emotional cost associated with those decisions. We can also provide you with referrals for services outside our scope of practice.
Something unique about Solid Ground is that you can reach out and speak directly to the clinician you are interested in working with. We do this so you can see how you mesh before scheduling an appointment with them. Along with the website profiles and social media information on our clinicians, we hope this direct contact option helps you make a solid choice about your therapist from the beginning so you can get started working towards your goals.
If you feel it is time to get your therapy journey started you can check out our therapist bios here: https://solidgroundmadison.com/therapistinfo/.
Stay well friends!