During the first session, your therapist may ask you: What are your symptoms? What brought you to therapy? What do you feel is wrong in your life?
The first question a therapist asks may vary depending on the situation and the therapist's style. Typically, a therapist will begin by asking the client about the reason for seeking therapy and what they hope to achieve through therapy.
During therapy, clients are often asked questions to help them tune in to their immediate experiences, such as: What are you feeling? What are you thinking? How does your body feel right now?
Your first session will probably involve your therapist asking you a lot of questions about you, how you cope, and your symptoms (it's basically an interview). You may also chat about goals for therapy, expectations, and more.
Therapy is a safe and supportive space.
Crying in therapy is a completely normal. Easier said than done, but try not to be afraid to let your emotions out.
What those first sessions are more likely to actually feel like is an extremely awkward, overly personal job interview as your therapist collects lots of information about you. It can help to understand that, surprisingly, the purpose of your first few sessions isn't therapy, but assessment.
A therapist can hug a client if they think it may be productive to the treatment. A therapist initiating a hug in therapy depends on your therapist's ethics, values, and assessment of whether an individual client feels it will help them.
Open-ended questions for counseling allow people to express their feelings and share thoughts they might not otherwise explore. If you've ever been in therapy, you have probably noticed that your therapist asks a lot of vague questions. In fact, this has even become a source of humor in pop culture.
But Therapists Don't Tell You What To Do
They will guide you to solutions they believe are best, but won't directly suggest things. Therapist Bethany Raab had a message for potential clients who worry about this issue. “I cannot make you do anything, nor do I want to do so,” she said.
And that means, from time to time, your therapist might get misty-eyed when you share feelings or recount difficult experiences. Whether or not you've personally witnessed a therapist cry, it's a fairly common occurrence.
Can You Overshare in Therapy? Yes, it is possible for a person to provide excessive amounts of information about their life in a therapeutic setting; however, “oversharing” is not necessarily a bad thing.
Whether this is the first time you've ever been to therapy, or you're seeing a new therapist after a history of working with others, it is not uncommon to feel an “emotional hangover” after their first therapy session.
Therapists also recognize that crying is not always a sign of distress but can also be cathartic and lead to personal growth. For example, some people may cry when they come to terms with difficult life experiences or when they achieve something meaningful that was previously out of reach.
Getting a client to open up in therapy starts with the foundation of trust that is built between them and yourself. As a therapist, you are responsible for creating a safe environment that the client feels comfortable in, leading to deeper conversations and the revelation of important details.
One is where the therapy has been long-term and growthful and the therapist feels sadness, even grief, at the ending because the therapist has developed affection, even love toward the client. In some ways, psychotherapy is one of the most intimate relationship a therapist can have.
Open-ended questions begin with the following words: why, how, what, describe, tell me about..., or what do you think about...
Funnel Questions. This technique involves starting with general questions, and then homing in on a point in each answer, and asking more and more detail at each level.