 What's it like in your first psychotherapy session? Okay guys, today I'm going to talk about what you can expect your first time in psychotherapy to be like. So if you've decided to go to counseling or psychotherapy, it's kind of a big step, right? A lot of people think, what's it going to be like in there? You know, how do we start? What do we talk about? First of all, it's a great decision, right? It's a brilliant decision to go to psychotherapy. And I actually recommend psychotherapy for everybody, okay? Not just people who have problems or whatever, you know, problems. I think it's for everybody, you can have anybody. But first of all, if you've got any anxiety about it, you don't know what to expect. The first thing to realize is that when you go to psychotherapy, a good psychotherapist is going to make you feel relaxed straight away, okay? They're going to put you at ease because they're going to know the assumption is when you go in there, this person has probably never been here before, okay? You may have been there before, they don't know that. But they're going to assume this is new to this person, right? The first thing is just make them feel relaxed, right? And in terms of what you talk about, there is no or there should be no agenda from the psychotherapist, okay? The psychotherapist is just going to let you go wherever you want to go with it, okay? And that's fine. Some people are okay with that. They feel comfortable just bringing up something, how they're weak has been. You know, well, why have I come here to begin with? What is the issue that's bothering me? Or maybe I've always felt a little bit depressed or anxious or whatever the emotion is. Maybe it's a breakdown in a relationship or maybe it's a bereavement or something like that. Maybe it's bullying at work. Whatever the issue might be, you might want to go there straight away. You might already know it. If you don't know how to start a session, that's okay too. You know, if you don't know what to talk about, the therapist, if the therapist senses that, you know, this person is a bit stuck here, they can ask probing questions, okay? They can ask about more pointed questions about your background, your childhood experiences, et cetera. And it's not what people think it is often. They think, oh, we're going to delve into my past here, into my childhood and start finding where are all the problems, et cetera. It's not like that, okay? It's just to get a sense of what your life has been like, you know? And maybe bringing up those things can cause you, the client in this case, to maybe take over and go at that and run with something that comes up from that, you know? So it's easy, okay? When you're starting out here, the therapist is going to make it easy for you. It's not always easy in psychotherapy because there's challenging work to be done in terms of talking about something that maybe you've been afraid about for a while or you've been holding on to for a while. And the emotional stuff will come up, you know, if the psychotherapist does your job correctly. But I suppose today's video is just about reassuring you that when you do go to psychotherapy and when you start out, there's nothing to be afraid of whatsoever, okay? You'll be guided through it and it's very, very easy. There's no mistakes. You could go in there, you could sit down for an hour and not say a word, okay? And the psychotherapist would be fine with that, okay? Or you could go in and you could spill out your guts and that's great too. So over time what you'll start then... Over time then what you'll start to realise is maybe the thing you brought the therapy to begin with is not the issue that's really bothering you, okay? That happens a lot in psychotherapy. A person might present with their feel frustrated with their partner at home or something like that. Or they feel like their co-workers are impossible. It could be any specific issue, right? And the client might feel, if I get this problem solved, then that's it, I'll feel better then. Often what you'll find is that there are other things that come up from that. Once you start digging in a little bit, you'll find that wasn't the real reason at all, okay? Another thing that might happen in psychotherapy is the therapist might say, okay, well, this is our first one, this is our consultation. So they might do a little bit of basic stuff like housekeeping things. They might run through sort of the rules of psychotherapy and the rules really are just safeguards in terms of reassuring you that anything you say is in complete confidentiality. They'll tell you about the limits of confidentiality. And they might even make a contract with you. They might say something like, okay, well, let's agree to do three sessions to begin with, okay, or six sessions maybe sometimes. And then we'll reevaluate where we are. We'll assess how this has been for you and whether we should continue or whether you could end psychotherapy or refer you to somebody else. So if you've already decided to go, great, I wish you all the best. After a little while you realize, you know, is this psychotherapist someone I like working with? Is this helping me in my day-to-day life? And that's the question, is it helping me? Okay, it should help you. It shouldn't be easy all the time. It should be challenging work, but you should begin to see after a little while I'm beginning to understand myself a bit more. I'm beginning to realize I can get in touch with my power a little bit more. I'm becoming a bit more resilient. I'm taking more responsibility for my feelings, okay? And I'm beginning to know how to understand my emotions and also to live with and feel my feelings as they come up. They're the skills you learn, okay? And those skills can be taken outside of psychotherapy, obviously, we're, you know, into the classroom of life, if you like. So that's what to expect from your first psychotherapy session and maybe a few other subsequent sessions. Best of luck in it and you'll enjoy the process. Best of luck. Take care.