Breakdown of Sessions
Individual Counseling & Therapy
Individual Counseling & Therapy | Columbia, MO
Oh my word, there is a lot to say here, but we’ll try to keep it brief and informative. But first, let me just say we are so dang happy that you’re here. Starting counseling for the first time, switching clinicians and practices, coming back after a hiatus from therapy–all of these can be haaaarrrrdddd to do. And in full transparency, we want to make a (sometimes) difficult process as easy as possible for you by helping you to know, in advance, what you can expect during your intake session (and next few sessions).
There are two main variables here: logistical and emotional. I’ll start with logistical.
Logistically speaking, here’s what you should know before your intake session.
Hang out in the waiting room until your clinician comes to get you for the session.
Easy enough. Once you walk in the main door, you’ll just pop a squat in one of our chairs and chillax. Grab some water, tea, or coffee, snack on some of the candy if you want, and thumb through a magazine that’s sitting on the side tables. You don’t need to do anything but wait. Your clinician will come to the waiting room to collect you at the time of your session.Your clinician will invite you to our secure telehealth portal.
If you’re an online client, then you’ll actually get an invitation to SpruceHealth, which is both a messaging system and our platform for online counseling/telehealth. It’s very user friendly and is extremely easy to set up. You’ll receive a text message invite prompting you to download the app and create an account. This is the way we do our online counseling, so it’s a “must” if you’re trying to be seen online.Your clinician will go over some housekeeping things, like your rights and key policies.
This will be the very first thing you do in session (we like to get it out of the way). Your clinician will spend some time discussing the informed consent with you, which includes confidentiality, your rights as a client, and some additional policies. It’s all information you’ve read, but still needs to be briefly discussed in person.Your clinician will gather information and history from you.
You’ve spent time filling out the intake, but your clinician is still going to want to ask you questions directly. This is so that they can ask you to elaborate in key moments, get some additional details, and fill in some gaps from what they’ve read. The ‘style’ of the intake session is markedly different from all of your future sessions. It’s a distinct experience, for sure.You will schedule your next session(s) at the end of the intake.
You and your clinician will figure out the scheduling that works best for you. We hiigghhlllyyy recommend weekly for four weeks, at least, and then assessing from there. That’s minimum required to really get a sense of direction, gain traction, and feel solid in the work.
That’s the essence of the logistical things you’ll need to know. The next portion seems silly to write about because it differs so much from person to person, but is worth it to try to clarify.
Emotionally speaking, here’s what you should know before your intake session.
Most people say, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” when they leave.
When people come in, even if they’ve done therapy before, they can feel anxious about the experience. You’re meeting somebody new, you’re going to talk about yourself, and you’re coming in to talk about a current problem. Basically, you’re airing your dirty laundry to somebody you don’t know at all. As clinicians, we see this process in an entirely different way (for the record), but we can’t deny that it can feel terrifying to start this type of work.You might cry. You might not.
Some people cry during their intake. Some people don’t. You don’t have to be doing counseling or therapy for very long to understand that most people cry, at some point, and that most people feel really uncomforable with it, even though they tend to feel better afterward. Our clinicians are pro-tears and we feel honored to help create a space for people to feel comfortable enough to cry (even if they say, “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry!”). People hate crying, so it feels worth it to ‘warn’ you that it might happen. Clinicians don’t hate crying. We think it’s beautiful and functional.You won’t have an answer or fix right away.
Oh, how we wish we could take people’s pain away in a snap of our fingers or the blink of our eyes (think Samantha from Bewitched). The problem? Not possible. When you come in and you want answers or a diagnosis or relief from some pain that you’re in, we can’t guarantee any of those things. We will try our damnedest to help you figure out what’s going on (or wrong) in your life, but we won’t be able to do that in one session.You might spend time talking about unexpected things.
I’ll say again, the intake session is you and your clinician getting to know each other and it’s about gathering information about who you are. This might mean that you’re talking about your family of origin even though you’re dealing with problems at work. Or this might mean that we want to know what strengths you have even though you’re frustrated with your partner. Here’s the deal (and I’ll try to put this as succinctly as possible, although it’s very difficult) - sometimes one aspect of your life might seem totally distant from another, but they actually have similar themes. The clinician role is to pick up on these similarities and help you piece together various parts of your life that you didn’t know were connected.
What about the sessions after my intake?
Great question. And here’s what I like to tell people.
Give it three sessions before you making any hard and fast decisions about therapy with your clinician. The first session (as you can see above) is about you and your clinician getting to know each other. It’s a time for data-gathering, relationship-building, and history-taking. As much as we try to make sure that the space is all about the client, the first few sessions might be a little bit heavier on the clinician-needs-to-know-information side of things. Not entirely, by any means, but more than what you’re going to see a few sessions in.
You’ll start to notice that sessions have a flow of their own. No two sessions between clients are exactly alike, but it’s usually by the third that you and your clinician will feel much more settled with each other, and also typically where you really start to gain some traction in the work. That can take the form of a new insight, a game plan for approaching your problems, or something else entirely. My point, though, is that you’ll start to get a “feel” or “vibe” of the session flow, and the comfort from that can help your work even further.
Lastly, please know that the frequency of your sessions is up to you and your clinician. We highly recommend weekly for the first four (at least, although six would be ideal), but we can’t force that and we know it’s not realistic for all of our clients. You and your clinician will be in conversation about frequency once per session (on average) and typically when it comes time to schedule. They will make recommendations based on their clinical opinion, and you will get to decide whether or not that works for you.