Hello Intheshadows and welcome to the forum! I sympathize so much with how you are feeling about going to your first session - I’m not too good on the advice front seeing as how I’ve been seeing Ts for most of my life so first sessions for me are a bit old hat - which doesn’t mean I don’t freak out or want to cancel at the last minute!

Please don’t worry about it being painfully quiet - it’s your T’s job to guide the session and make you comfortable - the only thing I would say (ah here’s some advice!) is to NOT push yourself to talk too much, just so as to fill the silences. Let your T give you the encouragement you need to open up.

Sorry I wish I could say more to support you, maybe others on here will be better at outlining how to handle a first session.

All the best with it and let us know how it goes?

Lamplighter

Hi Intheshadows - welcome to the boards! What a great question. Like LL I've had a few 'first sessions' with different therapists and it's never a comfortable thing, but it's got easier for me over time.

I know it can be a really huge deal to begin therapy - sometimes it takes everything you have to decide to share your life and situation with someone in this way and to ask for help. So I'm not surprised you are feeling nervous.

I would say, though, that it's worth remembering you are doing this for YOU - because you want to live well and be healthy and happy and be good to other people, probably, too - so however scary it is, you can feel proud that you are taking this really positive step to look after yourself and your life.

I think there are lots of ways to handle a first session. I often go in thinking I want to 'interview' the therapist, and get more information from them, but I haven't yet had the courage! Often the T has asked me to say a little bit about what's brought me there, and I find it helps to have even just a sentence or two ready to say about that. For me, after that, it tends to get easier, because I've been lucky enough to find T's who ask pretty good questions about my situation after that.

I always have to remind myself, though, that it's okay to say "I don't know" in answer to a question, or even "that's pretty complicated, I don't really want to get into that right away..." or "actually what I just said doesn't really feel like the right answer, maybe we can come back to that later". In other words, it's your session, you can shape it according to how you feel - though I know how tricky that can be when you feel freaked out and on the spot.

Don't forget it's the T's job to help you - you don't have to get it right or do it perfectly.

Let us know how it goes!

thank you for your replies. LL that was good advice, i would definitely feel that i needed to talk and would say anything to break the silence and just make a mess of it and then regret it after. makes much more sense that the T pull it out a bit at a time. i am still really worried. i want to make a good and positive first impression and not have her think im not interested in helping myself or taking counseling serious enough. thanks for the encouragement J, good to know others are nervous at first too. its the "why do you want counseling now" question that i am most worried about. i know i have issues, but i dont know why at this moment i decided i wanted counseling. its probably one of the first questions i will be asked and i dont have answer for it. so i have been researching on the internet first counseling sessions and questions. still dont have an answers yet, but a bit of direction, kinda. i need some kind of answer before i go in. good to know that a sentence or two will probably be enough. i know there is no right or wrong way to do counseling, but for some reason i think i am going to mess it up the first time.

i will let you know how it goes.

Intheshadows I’ve been thinking about your questions - especially as I’m in the process of seeing new Ts right now. The thing that I tend to do is try and get what I think is wrong with me and what I think I am looking for in therapy all clear in my head (I start by writing it out end up at page 50 decide that’s a bad idea and start from scratch again lol) so with each new T I end up going in with what I think is a bigger better improved potted version of my set up.

I now am rethinking this strategy - I think I end up spending so much of the session going over and over my issues in a hundred didn’t variations (trying to see if I am understood) that I don’t get a proper chance to get a feel for what the T is actually like. I’m beginning to think that the best approach is to play a bit dumb if asked the question that is scaring you ‘why are you in therapy’ - and let the T try and draw it out of me - one sentence at a time - so I can get a feel for whether the T is a) willing to make an effort to try and get to know me and b) how understanding the T is of my actual problem (getting it out a few words at a time puts them in the position where they have to feed back or paraphrase what I’m saying and that gives me a far better idea of whether they’re getting it and maybe can help than if I rattled off my potted history and just get a blanket yes I understand response.

Sorry this is musing aloud for how I’m going to try and handle a first session - but I do so know the freaking out that goes with wondering how the hell am I going to explain to this new person why I’m here. So thought I would suggest to you (yes MORE advice lol) - I’d suggest you just go in and depending on how comfortable the T makes you feel, just say things like I don’t really know I’m not really sure right now it’s a bit confusing I’m very nervous and can’t seem to get the words out, that sort of thing, and let them help you tell your story.

After years of seeing umpteen different therapists I STILL have real problems and FEAR when I’m put on the spot with that question.

At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter whether you come away feeling like you’ve said too much (babbled!) or not said enough - so long as you feel that the T is helpful and you want to continue with them, you have plenty of time to tell your story without feeling so pressured.

I think you are doing the right thing researching this as much as you can (looking on internet and the like) I wish I’d had that sort of info when I first started doing therapy because for a long time I felt the onus was on me to be a ‘good’ client, to somehow ‘convince’ the T that I needed help and I was terrified all the time that Ts would think I was just attention seeking…

Anyway all of that is to say I understand what you’re going through and really want to wish you all the best for that first meeting. Is it not long now?

Lamplighter

LL, i hope your session will go well and you get a T who understands you and your issues! i like your musings. it helps me to sort things out too. your re-think idea sounds like the right idea, but right now i am doing what you say in your first paragraph. ive already revised a bunch and plan to revise it more. guess i will until the appointment. i plan to have a bunch of answers typed out and on different pages so that if i get stuck maybe and i mean maybe, ill just hand the paper with the answer i wrote on it. a kind of safety net for me. i will be winging alot of it. my appointment is a bit off yet as there is something i have to do before i go, but it is getting closer. just about three weeks. i think it will really hit me as the days get closer. on the actual day i am sure to be a nervous reck. do you have a first session coming up. i would like to hear how it goes for you.

Intheshadows you sound like you are getting yourself well prepared for your first session - good on you. Being a nervous wreck seems to be par for the course I reckon, if you can just accept you’ve got every good reason for being nervous and not freak out and run away that would be good too!

Yeah I had a first session today, funnily enough it’s not really registered in my mind too much because I’m so overwhelmed by the bad three sessions I had with a new T I started with last week. In fact I haven’t even thought about it and I think when I went in I was pretty disconnected too so it all seems a bit unreal. I think I went in without any expectations or the drive to make myself understood (unusually for me) I think I just mentally accepted it wasn’t going to work or something, don’t know. Sorry I’m not being very helpful here am I? I need to go away and think about it to make some sense of what actually went on in the session.

Anyway three weeks is a pretty long time - I hope you get done what you need to before then. If you want to talk about any of it here, please feel free it doesn’t all have to be only about actual therapy! (Well too bad if it does, I have rabbited on about all sorts of other things as well

Lamplighter

Oooooh! LL here are some (((Hugs))) for you!