Step 3: What to expect in your first session
Starting therapy can be nerve-wracking – we want to ensure that you know what to expect in a first session so you can feel at ease knowing what to anticipate when meeting with your counsellor and building a therapeutic relationship with them. Each therapist can do things a bit differently or in a different order, but you can generally expect the following to happen!
accessing your first session
If you’re coming for an in-person session – we’re looking forward to welcoming you to our office! Check out Making Your Way to the Allura Office to receive details about how to get our office, our office space, accessibility, and settling in for your first session.
If you’re attending a virtual session – We love the ease of virtual therapy to make it more accessible to those who can’t make it to our office for any reason, and have sessions at more convenient times of the day! For learning about virtual sessions, you can check out our Making The Most of Virtual Sessions page here.
Informed consent process reviewed
We sent you an Informed Consent Form prior to the session to review, this would have come alongside your intake forms! The Informed Consent form explains our policies while you’re a client of Allura, as well as your rights as a client working with our team.
We appreciate that you’ve reviewed and signed the form ahead of time!
To ensure that you fully understand the importance of the Informed Consent process, it is our responsibility to review parts of the form with you in-person as well to make sure you are aware of these policies and your rights. Specifically, we’ll review (at minimum): our fees, our cancellation and rescheduling policy, confidentiality and exceptions to confidentiality, and how to get in touch with your counsellor outside of session time.
beginning to unpack what brought you for therapy
Your counsellor will now begin to ask you questions related to what brings you to therapy – the goal is to understand more about the history, your experience of the issue, and different aspects of your life to be able to understand what may be contributing or impacting your issue.
Your counsellor is asking pretty personal information, so know that it’s your right to let them know if you’re not comfortable exploring that area! While we value as much as you feel safe or comfortable sharing and it helps us create as tailored of a Plan of Care with you to help you reach your goals, we want you to share that information at a time that’s right for you. Your trust in your counsellor and our team is one of the most impactful factors in your success in therapy!
GATHERING MORE INFORMATION
Your counsellor is trying to ask the right questions to ensure that they can create a Plan of Care unique to you and the way you two will work towards your goals in therapy. Some times, this can be done more broadly in one session, but can take up to 3 sessions to understand what’s going on clearly enough to create a Comprehensive Plan of Care!
We’re just rolling out our Plan of Care, so you may work with a counsellor who will discuss this with you explicitly and share a document with you to support your therapeutic work, or a counsellor who hasn’t had this implemented yet into their practice but will verbally create a plan of care with you at the start of your work.
checking in if they’re the right fit
As you get to the end of your session, anywhere around the 40-45 minute mark (individual sessions) or 70-75 minute mark (first couples sessions), your counsellor will check in to see how you feel working with them! Remember that the comfort and connection you feel with your counsellor is one of the top predictors of success in therapy, so take a moment to check in if:
you feel like your counsellor made you feel understood
you felt growing comfort and ease as the session went on, or you feel like you could eventually get there
you feel like their approach and their style in therapy is how you feel most supported, or you feel hope in their approach even if it’s something different or new to you
You may be unsure and want to give it another try or give it a bit more time before you decide, which is also okay! Sometimes, it takes a few sessions to get to that feeling.
On the other hand, if you aren’t feeling like this is the right fit for you or your counsellor didn’t create the space you expected, you can either let them know or contact our Practice Manager, Mara, via email at mara@alluracentre.com, give us a call at 604-398-8455, or let us know in your First Session Survey – we can discuss next steps from here to ensure you get the support that you need!
booking your next sessions
At the end of your first session, your counsellor is going to discuss booking your next sessions – you may have already booked your next few sessions when we confirmed your first appointment or you want to wait to discuss this with your counsellor. It’s best to book your next sessions at the end of the first session to ensure you can get into a regular schedule into your counsellor’s schedule, so bring your scheduler with you! You can also reach out to rebook your next session(s) directly with your counsellor or our client care team is able to support you with this as well at hello@alluracentre.com