As a therapist, I know entering therapy can be anxiety producing for many clients. Clients often report that they’re not sure what they’re supposed to say or do at the beginning of therapy. We want to take the mystery out of therapy because this should be a safe space for you to enter into.
Be Honest With Your Therapist
Therapists have heard it all so we won’t be surprised by anything that you’re going to share. Also, we need to hear the truth in order to help you in the best way. This includes disclosing trauma, substance abuse, infidelity, mental health history, current stressors, and any significant changes.
Even if you can start by letting us know there’s something hard to share, that’s a huge step. Therapists know this is asking you to be vulnerable and take a risk, so we try our best to make the therapy room and the therapeutic relationship emotionally safe.
Give Us Feedback and Ask Questions
The therapeutic journey is a process and we value your feedback. Please tell us what’s working well or what’s not working. If you have questions about our approach, interventions or things we ask or say, background training, etc, please ask! We want you to feel comfortable and view therapy as a collaboration between therapist and client(s).
Come In As Soon As the Problem Begins
If a presenting concern is building, reach out to us to schedule an appointment. Don’t wait until there’s a crisis to come in.
Most therapists don’t have same day appointments available so clients may have to wait 1-2 weeks to schedule a time to meet. Please come in and get established with a therapist so that you can start to feel relief and have extra support.
We Aren’t Judging You
Clients often worry that the therapist is judging them but we’re not. We chose this work of therapy to help people through their struggles. We realize that everyone has stress, hurt, and pain and we realize that it presents in different ways. What often does not feel “normal” to clients, is actually very normal. We truly believe that people are strong and resilient and are not judging you for decisions or ways you have managed struggles in your life.
Therapy is Full of Mixed Emotions
Everyone experiences emotions and this isn’t bad and doesn’t make you weak. It’s ok to show emotions in session. We want to see the emotions because this is how we focus on emotional healing. Please do not feel like you have to restrict your emotions during session and you never have to apologize for expressing emotion. This is part of the healing process.
We Want You to Succeed and Complete Therapy
We want all of our clients to complete therapy successfully and put all of our effort into this. “Successful completion” is different for every client and this is why we have clients complete a treatment plan at the beginning of therapy.
This helps us make sure that we’re following the same healing path with our clients, and allows us to check in and monitor progress. We want clients to heal and move on from therapy. We have clients that drop down to “as needed” and that is completely ok and celebrated!
We hope that you can find relief from this information and are more likely to come in. If you’re interested in becoming a new client, please give us a call at (480) 888-5380, or go to therapywithheart.com to schedule an appointment. If you are an existing client, thank you for the work you do!
This Post Written By:
Rachel Thomas, Owner, LMFT – Therapy With Heart
8737 E. Via De Commercio, Suite 200
Scottsdale, Arizona 85258
Phone: (480) 888-5380
Fax: (480) 203-2881
Email: Rachel@TherapyWithHeart.com
Website: https://therapywithheart.com
