Questions Clients Have About Working With A Therapist - Part 1 of 2

Many people start therapy but don’t know what to expect. Others don’t start because they’re also don’t know what to expect, which can create a lot of anxiety. You might not know what to do in each session, how to prepare, how to know when you’re reaching goals, or how to work well with your therapist.

With the start of this new year, I want to make this part of therapy as easy as possible. Hopefully, you’ll find answers to questions you have and even to some you didn’t realize you had about working with a therapist. 

Here are the four main questions I’ll answer:

1. Who leads the session?
2. What should you do in (and between) each session?
3. How do you know when you’re making progress?
4. How do you work with your therapist well?

In this part of the two-part series, I'll answer the first two questions. In the second part, I'll answer the last two.

Who leads the therapy session?

One of the most common questions about therapist is who directs each session? Should you talk about the things that are important to you or let the professional lead and ask questions?

I think the reason for this is simple: you don’t know what’s really important to focus on and want to trust the professional to know. If you did know, you might not be in therapy in the first place because you’d be able to identify the issues and lead yourself through it!

So what’s the answer? It depends on your therapist. Some have a system they use to walk people through while others are more fluid with their clients. I typically let clients bring in whatever seemed important to them to talk about, trusting that they are the expert of their own life. They know themselves better than anyone else.

When you talk about whatever is going on in your life or whatever is distressing you, your therapist is probably gathering all the information and looking for threads that run through it all. These threads can be behavior patterns, mistaken beliefs, deep-rooted issues, unmanaged emotions. Whatever it is, your therapist has been trained to find them. If you want this kind of feedback, ask your therapist to share what he or she is seeing so you can see it in yourself, too.

What should you do in (and between) each counseling session?

Another common question is about the direction for each session. How do you work toward the goals you set in the first session or two? What does that look like a few months down the road?

Not knowing how to practically work, week to week, toward your therapy goals is a common challenge. Again, if you knew how to do this, you’d already be doing it! Having a therapist help you identify your goals then walk you through ways to accomplish them is the process of therapy. It takes time, practice, and collaboration.

Here’s what you can do to help with the process. After every 3-5 sessions, think about why you came to therapy in the first place. Try and keep these in your mind as you go to therapy, because you’ll always be walking toward them. 

Try answering these questions for yourself: What has happened in you or in your life that you want to share with your therapist? What feedback do you want to get back, or what do you need from your therapist? Do you need to process verbally, get feedback or be challenged, or specific things you can do or think about?

You can also share what you’ve been processing. What you think, the process through which you got there, how it impacted you emotionally, and what you did about it (your actions) are all helpful to share. These give your therapist a great deal of information to work with! It’s like when you take your car to the mechanic to see the problem happening. The mechanic can get a clearer picture of what’s going on so it can be fixed.

Conclusion

While there isn't really a right or wrong way to do therapy, there are things you can do that are more helpful toward reaching your goals. It's important that you know what these are and that you work with your therapist to be on the same page about this. Working together and in sync is an important part of any relationship, and is especially important with your therapist.

Stay tuned for part two of this series. I'll address the other two questions - how to know when you're making progress and how to work well with your therapist.

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More Therapy Services at Discover Counseling in Tigard, OR

We help with your anxiety and depression, but we can also help navigate these difficult life transitions. Especially, the grief and loss we are all feeling right now! This is an especially difficult time for engaged couples and couples on the brink of separation or divorce. Also, for pregnant, postpartum, and parenting couples. Basically, everyone is facing some type of stressor right now. Please let our therapists help you navigate this difficult time.