During the Initial Consultation Session, we’ll discuss what brings you to therapy, your history and goals. I’ll also share how I work and the approaches that inform me. Together, we’ll decide what next steps make sense.
There are many factors that impact whether therapy will be effective. One of the most central is the quality of the therapeutic relationship. You need to find a therapist who has a deep understanding of the struggles you face and specialized training in approaches that will work for you. Selecting someone who will be right for you at this point often depends on where you are in your healing journey. Are you currently seeking skills and strategies or deeper understanding? Do you already understand how the past influences the present but now seek to heal early memories at their root? During the initial consultation session, we’ll gain clarity about what will be most useful to you at this time — and whether that is one of my strengths or if I can offer additional resources and referrals that might be a better fit.
Beyond therapy technique, finding the right therapeutic match can also be about style, personality, cultural background, age, and gender. You are allowed to have preferences about what you want. It’s important you feel safe. Sometimes it is enough to be able to name differences and discuss them openly, but other times it is essential to find someone with a shared identity.
There are also intangible aspects to therapeutic fit that we often cannot know until we sit in the room together (whether virtual or in person). Do you feel at ease with the therapist and comfortable sharing your story and your emotional reactions — even your emotional reactions to things the therapist has said? It often takes some time to figure this out.
I consider the first three sessions to be the Initial Consultation period, during which we are exploring these questions together. While the first session is always 90 minutes, to give us enough time and space to really tune in to one another, the second and third sessions can be either 50 or 90 minutes. By the end of these first three sessions, we will have a lot more clarity about the next steps that make sense. They may include continuing to work in individual therapy, shifting to the IFS-EMDR Intensives model, or providing you with referrals to other therapists whose work is better aligned with your goals and needs at this time.
Counseling Sessions
If we decide to continue working together, we also decide on a structure and pace for the work that best aligns with your goals. Individual sessions can be 50 minutes, 90 minutes, or longer — and can be scheduled weekly or every other week. Couples therapy sessions are generally longer, giving both people ample time to share. Additionally, highly sensitive people and those engaging in trauma processing work usually benefit from sessions that are 90 minutes or longer.
The frequency with which we meet is also important to consider. When we are doing deeper, trauma processing work, meeting more regularly will be essential. If our focus is on self-exploration and support in getting to know your internal family system, it may be possible to space sessions out more — perhaps meeting for 90 minutes every other week. Some clients find the spaciousness of 90-minute sessions (weekly or every other week) to be a better fit overall because they allow more time for transitioning in and out of the work. When we’ve been working together for a while, you may find that shifting to a different cadence would be supportive (for example, 2-hour sessions monthly). This is an ongoing dialogue.
