What can I Expect from Doing Talk Therapy?

It can be overwhelming to start therapy. Ultimately, however, therapy can be a truly helpful and life-changing experience. Here is what you can expect when you start.

-A Safe Space: Therapy should offer you a safe and comfortable emotional space in which to talk about anything that will be helpful to you. Your therapist should always strive to make you feel at home and should take a supportive, non-judgmental stance.

-A Collaboration: Your therapist should work with you, taking care to build rapport and a supportive environment. You are the “expert” in your life and your therapist should aim to guide and support you but not to tell you what to do. Good therapy should feel like a collaborative effort and should never feel one-sided.

-A Different View of Yourself: Through the therapeutic process, many clients begin to see themselves differently. A more positive view of yourself can be the result of putting words around your challenges and sharing them with a trusted ally. Your therapist should work to help you see strong and resilient parts of yourself that you may not have been paying attention to or that may have been obscured by problems like anxiety or depression.

-An Unbiased Approach: Your therapist should have no other agenda but to be helpful to you. According to their code of ethics and conduct, therapists come into treatment without bias or judgment and never take the stance of “knowing better” than you.

-A Focus on You: Good therapy is about you. You should be the focus of the hour you spend with your therapist. Your therapist makes an emotional investment in your success and therapy should always be centered on the client.

By Phil Lane, LCSW

This post is intended for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical diagnosis or treatment. If you think you may have a medical emergency, immediately call your doctor or dial 911.

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