When you arrive for your first appointment you can help yourself to a coffee or a cup of tea in our waiting room until your therapist comes to greet you at the designated time. It is not necessary for you to knock or announce your arrival, your therapist may be with another client.

Your session will begin with an assessment, which consists of you telling the therapist why you have decided to come to therapy. Your therapist will ask you questions in an attempt to learn as much as possible about you and the reasons you are seeking help. The number of questions will slow down once the assessment is over and this can (but does not always) take more than one session. The goal of the assessment is to determine the nature of your problem and to develop a plan of action or to strategize for your treatment. You will also be invited to ask any questions you may have of the therapist. From your own perspective, the assessment can tell you a number of things including: Whether or not you can develop a good working relationship with the therapist; the type of approach that your therapist typically uses; and, whether you feel hopeful that your therapist’s style and approach are likely to be helpful for your concerns.

During the first session some time will be spent doing paper work. You can elect to speed this up by downloading the forms from our website and filling them out before your arrival. We will need some of your demographic information and together we will go over a standard consent form to participate in therapy as required by the ethical guidelines. This consent form is required for all psychologists/psychotherapists to obtain before therapy can proceed.

You and your therapist will then schedule follow up appointments for you to begin working on whatever it is you came here to do. As you proceed, your therapist will periodically check in with you to determine if you are receiving the help you need, to summarize the gains you are making, and to discuss whether we need to revise goals or discuss coming to an end.