An Overview of Therapy
If you’ve never seen a psychologist, it’s normal to wonder what it’s like. Below is an overview of the typical process in therapy. Everyone is different and we’ll adapt the below to suit you.
Therapy starts with a getting-to-know-you phase where we discuss your current painful patterns, relevant background information, and broader life circumstances. Depending on your situation, this might be one or several sessions. We’ll work together to identify the processes that get you stuck and outline a rough plan for treatment. We’ll always have an eye on this and can change it when needed.
We’ll also spend some time safely and gently making sense of your emotions. We often need to address some of the negative everyday patterns that have become automatic reflexes. You might learn and practicing new things. We’ll move on from here when you have renewed balance, perspective and hope.
Assessment and Finding Balance
As your week-to-week experience becomes more manageable, we’ll start to focus more on central patterns that have caused problems. The aim here is to build consistency and resilience so that you are less affected by life’s challenges.
We’ll work on expanding your capacity to engage with deeper emotions, promote acceptance and self-compassion, and build more flexibility in the way you respond to problems and opportunities.
Restructuring and Expanding Life
Consolidation
For most clients, therapy will be goal-oriented and time-limited. Most don’t need it to be ongoing. As our work together comes to an end, we’ll start to make sessions less frequent. I might help you apply new learning to new problems as they come up.
We’ll also talk about the growth you’ve started and the changes in beliefs, feelings and actions you’ve experienced. Together, we’ll reflect on the differences and what this means for your future growth. If needed, we might also schedule in periodic “booster sessions” to provide a little support in maintaining and applying changes.