Your First Individual Therapy Appointment: What To Expect

So, you’ve called and scheduled your first individual therapy appointment. Congratulations! It can be a challenge to make the first step when you are new to the therapy world. 

Now that you’ve got the appointment scheduled, what can you expect? Today, you will learn about how things work in a typical first individual therapy session. Then, you will learn how to schedule your own first therapy appointment, if you want to get started. 

Before Your Appointment

Once you’ve scheduled your appointment, you will be asked to sign and complete appointment paperwork. These documents will contain information about the risks and benefits of therapy, your therapist, confidentiality, and other guidelines for the therapy process. You may also be asked to complete questionnaires or an intake document to help give your therapist additional background information. Additionally, you may also be asked to provide health insurance information for billing purposes. 

During the Appointment

When you arrive at your appointment, you will take a seat in our waiting room and wait for your therapist. Once the therapist takes you back to the therapy room, you will begin to answer many different questions. These questions provide the therapist with not only background information and details about the problems you hope to address in therapy, but will also help them understand who you are as a person and your world. 

The questions your therapist asks will depend on your situation and the things you hope to address in your appointments. The therapist might ask about your home growning up and how you were raised. They might ask for the solutions you’ve already attempted before. Or they might ask for information about your relationships. While some of these topics might seem random or unrelated, nearly all of the information the therapist gathers in your initial sessions will be useful in helping them know how to most effectively address the problem that brought you there to begin with. 

Additionally, your therapist may review the next steps in the therapeutic process, schedule your next appointment, and create goals and a plan for treatment. Your therapist might assign you “homework” to work on in between appointments. There are many different types of therapy homework. Some popular types of therapy homework involve writing in your journal or completing a worksheet or exercise outside of the session. And, you can expect to potentially receive some sort of homework assignment after most of your appointments. Therapy homework is common and can be a valuable opportunity for you to prepare for your next appointment or apply what you’ve learned in session.

After Your Appointment

Once the appointment has ended, you will verify that you have scheduled your next meeting with your therapist, and you can use the time in between appointments to prepare for your next meeting. 

If therapy is a new experience for you, the first few appointments might feel especially challenging. Maybe you feel awkward in session. Or maybe you’re struggling to open up. There are many reasons why therapy may be uncomfortable at first. Thankfully, these experiences are normal and expected. You might need some time to warm up to the therapist before you feel more comfortable in session, which is common.

Start Individual Therapy

If you haven’t scheduled an appointment with a therapist yet, contact us today to review therapist and appointment options and find the best fit for you. Start individual therapy in Orem, South Jordan, or Spanish Fork, or via Telehealth for anyone in Utah.

Written by Lauren Adkins