Session 115: What to Expect at Your First Session

Published Jul 17, 2019, 7:00 AM

The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

In this week's episode I'm chatting about what you can expect in your first therapy session. 

 

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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session one of the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. I know that there are many of you listening who may be thinking about starting therapy soon but just still may be feeling a little uncomfortable about exactly what happens in that first session. So today I wanted to share some information about what happens in the first session to help you get a little more acquainted with the process. So your first session, and maybe even your first couple of sessions, is typically what we call the intake. It's our opportunity as therapists to get to know more about you and what's bringing you into therapy, and it's also your opportunity to get to know more about how we work and whether you feel comfortable talking to us. It's likely that before you attend your first session, you'll have filled out some paperwork, so we might check in with you about whether you had any questions, and we'll also likely spend some time in that first session chatting with you about things like confidentiality and when it needs to be broken, our cancelation policies, and what steps you might need to take in the case of an emergency. It's also likely that we'll talk with you about what happens if we see each other in public. So I typically tell my clients that if I run into you in Walmart, I will pretend as if I don't know you, and that is an interest of protecting your confidentiality. So I don't ever want to put a client in a position of having to identify who I am if that's not something they're comfortable with. It's also likely that will spend some time talking with you about boundaries and confidentiality related to social media. So our professional ethics boards all have lots of rules about how we interact with clients. Outside of the therapy space, and it's not appropriate for us to be friends with, to like, or to follow any clients on social media. Social media is also not an appropriate place for us to communicate with clients as it's not confidential and your private health information could be compromised. We all know these things sometimes get hacked, and so it's just not the appropriate place for you to be trying to communicate with your therapists. So after we go through all these kinds of guidelines, then comes all of the questions. So I know a lot of people feel pressured to figure out what they're gonna say in their first session, but I can assure you your therapists will have tons of questions, so don't worry about that. Will likely ask you about what's bringing you into therapy, how long it's been going on, and why you're deciding to start therapy now. We'll also probably ask about your relationships with family and friends, what you do for work or school, what you're sleep and eating patterns look like, whether or not, and how much you use any substances. And will probably also ask about whether you've had therapy or medication in the past, and whether you've been hospitalized for any psychiatric kinds of concerns. It's also pretty standard for us to ask about whether you're currently having any thoughts of suicide or whether you've had them in the past. You'll also spend some time in the intake process discussing your therapeutic goals. What exactly would you like to get out of therapy? We sometimes ask the magic question, which is some variation of this question. If you were to wake up tomorrow and everything was better, how would you know what would be different? That helps us to tap into what changes you might be seeking and how we might help you to get there. Now, you may not get into all of these areas in the first session, depending on where the questions lead, but it's likely you'll get to most of these and roughly the first one to three sessions. And again, all of these questions are designed to help us get a clearer picture of what's going on with you, what areas we may need to ask more about, and how we may begin to help you meet the therapeutic goals that you said now. Of course, all of this is generally speaking. We don't all follow one script, and there's no one way to do an intake, but generally this is what you would expect the first session to look like. There are a few other things that I want you to know about that first session, just so you have a realistic idea about what happens and that you're not surprised about how you might be feeling afterwards. So the first thing I'd like you to know is that you probably won't walk away with a lot of answers or solutions after that first session, as again, it's really more about getting to know you and what's going on. And I know that can be incredibly frustrating, as it may have taken a lot of energy and a lot of time for you just to get to that first session, but it's probably not realistic to think that you'll leave with a fully formed treatment plan after just one visit. You gotta hang in there, give it a little time, give yourself time to get to know the therapists, give the therapist time to get to know you before you really get to see some movement. The second thing I'd like you to know is that it's unlikely that you'll leave the first session with a diagnosis. If you ever leave with a diagnosis, So you probably have heard me talk about the d C m which is our big book. This is the big book in our field, which contains all the mental health diagnoses and the criteria that must be met for each one. So, based on the information that you share in the intake, we may feel like you might meet criteria for something like a major depressive disorder or an anxiety disorder, but it's very likely we'll want to get much more information and hear more about the history and the severity of any symptoms you're experiencing before we'll make a diagnosis. But I also think it's important to note that not everyone meets criteria for a diagnosis, so you can see a therapist without ever a meeting criteria for a diagnosis. You don't have to have a diagnosis to be seen in therapy. And then the third thing that I want you to know about that first session is that you may feel a little exposed in the hours in the days afterwards, especially if you shared a lot and this was the first time that you talked about maybe some very private information. So it may initially feel better to finally have a place to share what you're struggling with, But afterwards, you may have what we call a vulnerability hangover and This is where later in the day or the next morning, you wake up and you think, what in the world did I just do? So it may feel like you have been naked in front of a room full of people. So I want you to know that this is not uncommon and it may make you feel a little bit embarrassed and difficult for it for you to go back to the therapist. But I want you to try to fight through that feeling if that comes up for you, and go back the next session and share with your therapist what happens. If you can get through those feelings of vulnerability and hanging there, it will likely be a very worthwhile experience. So let me know what other questions you have about that first session of therapy. Are there concerns you have about what happens in the first session that I haven't addressed. Let me know on social media using the hashtag tb G in session and I'll try to answer as many as I can. And remember to share this episode with two friends who you think might benefit from it. And share your takeaways with us from the episode either on Twitter or in your I G stories, And again make sure to use that hashtags that we can find it if you've been contemplating therapy and you still feel a little confused about how to get started, don't forget that we have a guide to getting started with therapy that you can download at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash g t G S And of course that information will be in the show notes so that you can find that easily. And if you've already decided to start therapy but you're still looking for a therapist, be sure to visit our therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And I also want to add that we are now adding therapists from Canada to the directory, So if you are a therapist in Canada and you're listening, please add your information to the directory, as we've had lots of requests from listeners in Canada who want to connect with great therapists there as well. If you haven't already, make sure that you're following us across our social media channels, as we've been having some incredible conversations all this month in honor of Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, we've been talking all about our relationships with other sisters, and we've dubbed this our Summer of sisterhood. So we're really wanting to delve into all things related to friendship and how to create and maintain healthy support systems. So join us in those conversations if you have it. You can find us on both Facebook and Instagram at Therapy for Black Girls, and you can find us on Twitter at Therapy for the Number four be Girls. A huge shout out to all of you that I met last weekend at the Essence Festival. It was so beautiful to meet and chat with so many of you who listen to the podcast. And another thank you to all of you who sent your love even though you couldn't be there. I really really appreciate it. Thank y'all so much for joining me again this week, and I look forward to continue in this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care, m Ber

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The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a license 
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