December 25, 2024 • 15 mins
Couch Talks is the bonus episode of You Need Therapy where Kat answers questions that listeners send to kathryn@youneedtherapypodcast.com. This week, Kat talks about how to prepare and what to expect for your first therapy session with a new therapist.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi guys, and welcome to a new episode of Couch
Talks on You Need Therapy Podcast. My name is kat
I am the host and couch Talks is the special
bonus episode of You Need Therapy where I answer questions
that you guys sent to me at Catherine at you
Need therapypodcast dot com. We answer one question a week
(00:30):
usually and we keep them always anonymous so you can
always feel safe and secure knowing that I'm not going
to tell people who it is that sent into question,
because sometimes they're sensitive topics and subjects that you might
not want everybody knowing that you asked. I have a
question today from a listener. I'm going to read it
and then we're going to talk about it. Hey, kat,
(00:52):
I believe that everyone is going through something and that
most people would benefit from therapy. With that said, it's
hard to start. It's hard to research and choose a
therapist who you think you would respond to. It's hard
to show up knowing that you have to tell as
much of your story as you can so a therapist
can have the opportunity to help. It's hard to be
objective as you tell the story. All the things are hard.
(01:14):
Can you talk about the process of the first therapy session.
I feel like it's a download of everything that has
led me to a therapist. And if I'm honest, the
first step is so hard that I ultimately booked the
session and then feel so anxious about all the details
that I cancel my session. Okay, So when I first
started reading this email, I thought it was going to
be an email asking how to find a therapist, which
(01:35):
we've talked about a lot, and it's important to talk about.
It's an important question, it's a valid question. I have
a highlight on my podcast Instagram page at un Therapy
podcast that talks about that that if you're looking for
help regarding how to find a therapist, go to that.
You can also probably google and wherever you're finding your
podcast how to find a Therapist you Need Therapy podcast,
(01:56):
and there's an episode for that. Now this is a
different question, and it's just as important of a question. Yes,
find a therapist can be so exhausting and hard, and
it can take forever, and it can really suck the
energy that you have to do hard things right out
of you. So once you then make the appointment, how
do you prepare to actually go do the thing that
(02:18):
is therapy the scary thing. Now, I can only speak
from my experience of going to therapy and how I
actually do things as a therapist, So I will say
your experience may vary depending on who you see and
how they structure their work. But I am going to
talk about what a first session is like and how
to prepare for it and what to expect. Regardless, it
is normal, Just so everybody knows, it's very normal to
(02:41):
be anxious about a first session. There's a lot of unknowns,
and also going into your first session, there's probably a
lot of things ahead of you that include talking a
lot about hard things, or facing hard things, or sitting
with hard things and letting people see things that you
don't really want anybody to see. So that's enough to
make you anxious. And then also a first session is
(03:01):
a lot different than any other session in my experience,
It's like one part I have to say and go
over all the things as a therapist. I have to
like talk about informed consent and talk about how we
do scheduling and all that. And then also it's another part,
let's get to know each other and figure out what
you need as much as we can. In less than
(03:22):
an hour. And before I talk more in depth about
all of this, I want to give a quick list
of three things to consider before first session that I
think are important. One, get there early. The last thing
you want is to run into your first session like
ten minutes late, all like huffing and puffing because you
couldn't find a parking spot and then you couldn't figure
out which door to walk through, and now you're out
(03:43):
of breath and you're all worked up. And then you
spend the next ten minutes talking about that, and then
talk about how sorry you are and all of the things,
and then you've wasted twenty minutes and you're anxious on
top of your anxiousness. And then number two, give yourself
some free time after the session, so you don't know
what it's going to feel like after you're done, and
you may want some time to just process or just sit.
(04:06):
So I would suggest blocking off an extra thirty minutes
to an hour after a session so you can just
relax and not have to worry about what you're about
to run right back into. You can really just be
with it. And then the last thing is set realistic expectations.
So we're going to talk about some of that, but
your life isn't going to be changed in one therapy session.
(04:26):
Definitely not an intake. You might feel a little better
at times, sometimes you might feel worse, but set realistic expectations.
You are starting something, you are not going to finish
it in one session, and you might not get a
good read on your therapist's personality or style just by
their intake. So I wouldn't write somebody off just by
how they do their intake. I would give them another shot.
(04:49):
If you think you don't like them, try them again
and give yourself a real chance to actually figure it
out now. I personally don't do consultations or like extended
intake sessions. I will just a first session, like any
normal session. It's going to be fifty minutes. Some therapists
do do that. I don't. It just works better with
my schedule and it's just how I do things. When
(05:09):
I schedule a new client, I send them the paperwork
they need to fill out for me, including informed consent,
all the policies, and the actual intake form, so they
can do that as soon as they want, or they
can do it the day before the session. I really
like to have them have it done before I'm going
to see them, because then I get to kind of
like look through it and kind of get a handle
(05:30):
on what we might be working on to kind of
inform me. Now, if you don't, it's not that big
of a deal. We can roll with it. But if
you're somebody who gets anxious about filling out paperwork, or
you're somebody who doesn't really want to do the intake form,
don't wait to the last minute. You can sometimes you
can do it in stages, or you can do it
and you can kind of fill it out but not
in detail, and then you can talk about the details
(05:51):
with the therapist. That being said, you don't really have
to do too much for a first session. It's kind
of a time for a therapist to ask questions, get
an idea of what's going on and how we can
best help. So you don't have to like super prepare,
get all your ducks in a row, write your life
story out. You don't. You get to show up as
(06:12):
raw as possible. I'm not going to really start any
like therapeutic initiative. Really like we're not going to start
the work the first session. Most likely it might feel
like it to you but if I'm kind of formulating
a plan in my head, I'm going to need some
time before we then start to like embark on that thing.
We might talk about stuff, we might start talking about
(06:32):
one specific part of your journey or what you're looking for.
But you don't have to prepare to like get ready
to start some big, huge life changing exercise the first session,
because most likely you're not going to be doing that.
What can be super exhausting, though, is the amount of
(06:53):
information you might be giving based on the questions that
the therapist is going to ask. And it might be
a really emotionally charged information for you, right Like, obviously,
you're going to therapy to talk about things that you
might not talk about with a lot of people, might
not want to talk about with a lot of people.
And the encouragement I would give to you if you're
one of these people is you don't have to give
every single detail in the beginning. You don't have to
(07:15):
answer every single question with a long, drawn out answer.
Therapy is very weird. You walk into a room with
a person that you probably found online, you definitely have
never met before, and you're expected to just like spill everything,
including your deepest darkest secrets, the stuff, like I said,
that's the most difficult for you to talk about, And
(07:37):
it would make sense if you didn't really want to
do that, and it would make sense if it freaks
you out a little bit, if you had a little hesitation.
And I think personally, as a therapist, the relationship you're
building in the therapy room is allowed to be one
that takes some time. So if you don't want to
talk about some of your trauma on your first day,
you are totally allowed to say that. You're allowed to say,
(07:58):
I want to talk about this with you, and I
think it needs to be talked about. I also need
more time before I'm ready to talk about it. That's
a good enough answer. You can also say like, I'm
willing to go this far, but this is when I
need to stop, or I want I'll give you the
gist of it, but I'm not ready to give the
details yet. It's okay for you to say that and
to kind of pace yourself. We're gonna roll with your pace,
(08:19):
especially in the first session. We're not gonna push push, push, push,
push until you feel like you're gonna break, because we
still have to build a relationship and trust and all
of that, and we want you to feel safe and
we want you to feel like you're in the room
for yourself, not to please the therapist. So I really
would encourage you to own that part. If you're not
ready to talk about something or answer something, you can say, hey,
(08:42):
I really want to get to know this space. I
want to get to know you, I want to get
to know therapy. I want to talk about some other
stuff before I get down to that part. That's totally fair.
I also think it's fair to say that you might
lie during your first session. And I talk about this
in my intakes a lot, and I just tell my
and say, there may be some questions I asked that
(09:02):
you're not ready to be honest about, and that's okay.
You can pass or you might lie, And all I
can ask is when you're ready, that you tell me
and that you know I'm not going to judge you
for not being its forthcoming right off the bat, because
I can't help you with things that you refuse to
acknowledge and hear. So i'd rather you come to me
(09:22):
and say, hey, I lied, I actually blah blah blah
blah blah, whatever the lie is, or I wasn't totally
honest about that, or I said that I do this,
but I really do that. I'd rather you say that
and then we can work on things and talk about Okay, well,
tell me why it was helpful for you to lie
about that in the moment. I'd rather do that than
like never come back to something that might be a
(09:43):
pivotal piece of information and I might even have like
a hunch that you're lying about. I'm more interested in
helping you heal the things that you need to heal
than maintaining the idea that you're perfect. Because we already
know we're humans, so we're not, so we can get
that out of the way. We all lie at times.
So I also, I want to give you guys permission.
The sounds weird saying, but I want to give you
guys permission like lie, But I also want to give
(10:05):
you permission to come back around and say, hey, there's
something I need to talk about with you, because you're
allowed to do that. Also, this is important and can
be applied to so much. I think that very often
when we feel a sense of nervousness or anxiety, we
want to hide it or what we want to make
it go away. However, that very well might not be possible,
(10:29):
Like I might not just be able to snap my
fingers and make my anxiousness go away and make myself
just not care about something for the most part, so
I've found it extremely helpful to just call it out.
Then I don't have to spend extra energy trying to
conceal what I'm feeling. I just like get to let
it be. If I walk into a session and say
I'm so nervous, you might be able to tell but
(10:51):
I just needed to put that out there. Then you
get to be nervous, and just the very idea that
you get to do so can calm your nerves. So
even just calling it out well might kind of take
some of that anxiety away from you. And this can
be applied to a lot of stuff, not just therapy sessions.
I think about it like giving presentations, Like when I
can go into something saying like, hey, I'm nervous about this.
(11:15):
If I'm walking into a room or a class or
anything and saying like, hey, I got some nerves I
want this to go well, it kind of lets me
relax rather than sucking it all in and having to
be like cool. Common collected, but inside like kind of dying.
And usually when I'm able to just acknowledge that I
don't have it all together and I'm feeling a little nervous,
(11:36):
I do better and I feel more comfortable and I
get to just be myself. So I would encourage you guys,
if you are feeling really anxious, you can even email
the therapist. Hey, just want you to know, I'm feeling
really anxious about tomorrow. Just wanted to put that out there, period,
and they might email something very kind back. Or you
walk in and that cow are you I'm really nervous.
(11:56):
I don't really know what to expect. I don't want
to talk about this stuff. Or you can just say
I'm nervous, that's okay. When it comes to a therapist,
they probably can spot anxiety and also it's normal and
possibly why you're even there in the first place. So
there's no need to put on a show for the
person who's most likely to see through that show. So
(12:17):
with all that being said, I just want to encourage
everybody who is getting ready to like book a first
session or maybe go to a first session for therapy.
You can just show up as yourself. What's probably going
to happen. You're going to either fill out paperwork there
or you're going to go through paperwork with the therapist.
They're going to ask you some questions, you're going to
answer them. You're going to get to know each other.
(12:38):
You're gonna make sure you both understand the policies and
how things work. You're going to figure out how scheduling
is going to go. You're gonna do a lot of
homeworky things. And then again you're going to go through
maybe the intake, or they're just going to start talking about, Hey,
what brought you in. Let's talk about that. You might
talk about the history of that problem. You might talk
about the history of your family and all. It's like
(12:58):
when you meet a new doctor too, they have to
go through your medical history. It's kind of what you're
going to be doing. And then if there's time left,
you might start working on something. But you're not going
to dig into the deep, deep, deep, deep, deep deep
depths of your stuff unless that therapist just does it
differently than most therapists, or that's really what you want
(13:19):
to do. If you don't want to do that, regardless,
you always get to say I don't want to do that,
and that's something I want to always continue to come
back to. When it comes to therapy, we are experts
as therapists. We usually are the ones in charge of
coming up with a plan, figuring things out, helping you
put some pieces together. And at the same time, you're
the client and you're the most important person in that room,
(13:40):
and you're the expert of your life, and we might
have a hunch about things that might help you get
to where you want to go, but you get to
be the one that says yes, and you get to
be the one that says no. You are in charge
of those two things, and we can't force you to
do anything. And if you feel like you're being forced,
I would call that out, because maybe you are and
the therapist is kind of being inappropriate or pushing too hard,
(14:02):
or maybe that's part of your story and you feel
oppressed a lot with and you feel like you don't
have choices when really you do, and it's easy to
forget that long, long way to say you're in charge.
So I hope that you go to the next therapy
session that you book. Whoever wrote this email, I'm speaking
to you, I hope you go to it and instead
of waiting for that anxiety about the therapy session to
(14:24):
go away, honor it, own it, call it out, and
bring it with you because it might actually be helpful.
Our feelings are tools and guides and they a kind
of show us what we need in life, and if
we ignore them, then we don't ever get to really
get the gift of what that feeling is telling us
that we need. So I hope that was helpful. If
you guys have any questions, you can email them to
(14:46):
Katherine at UNI Therapy podcast dot com. And if you
have any questions, even about episodes, they don't have to
just be personal questions. You can ask clarifying questions of
couch talks, you can ask clarifying questions of episodes I've done.
You just want to email me, just say hi, you
can do that. I hope you guys have the day
you need to have and I will be back with
you on Monday for another episode of You Need Therapy.
(15:10):
If you want to follow me, you can follow me
on Instagram at you Need Therapy and at kat van Buren. Bye.
Hi guys, and welcome to a new episode of Couch
Talks on You Need Therapy Podcast. My name is kat
I am the host and couch Talks is the special
bonus episode of You Need Therapy where I answer questions
that you guys sent to me at Catherine at you
Need therapypodcast dot com. We answer one question a week
(00:30):
usually and we keep them always anonymous so you can
always feel safe and secure knowing that I'm not going
to tell people who it is that sent into question,
because sometimes they're sensitive topics and subjects that you might
not want everybody knowing that you asked. I have a
question today from a listener. I'm going to read it
and then we're going to talk about it. Hey, kat,
(00:52):
I believe that everyone is going through something and that
most people would benefit from therapy. With that said, it's
hard to start. It's hard to research and choose a
therapist who you think you would respond to. It's hard
to show up knowing that you have to tell as
much of your story as you can so a therapist
can have the opportunity to help. It's hard to be
objective as you tell the story. All the things are hard.
(01:14):
Can you talk about the process of the first therapy session.
I feel like it's a download of everything that has
led me to a therapist. And if I'm honest, the
first step is so hard that I ultimately booked the
session and then feel so anxious about all the details
that I cancel my session. Okay, So when I first
started reading this email, I thought it was going to
be an email asking how to find a therapist, which
(01:35):
we've talked about a lot, and it's important to talk about.
It's an important question, it's a valid question. I have
a highlight on my podcast Instagram page at un Therapy
podcast that talks about that that if you're looking for
help regarding how to find a therapist, go to that.
You can also probably google and wherever you're finding your
podcast how to find a Therapist you Need Therapy podcast,
(01:56):
and there's an episode for that. Now this is a
different question, and it's just as important of a question. Yes,
find a therapist can be so exhausting and hard, and
it can take forever, and it can really suck the
energy that you have to do hard things right out
of you. So once you then make the appointment, how
do you prepare to actually go do the thing that
(02:18):
is therapy the scary thing. Now, I can only speak
from my experience of going to therapy and how I
actually do things as a therapist, So I will say
your experience may vary depending on who you see and
how they structure their work. But I am going to
talk about what a first session is like and how
to prepare for it and what to expect. Regardless, it
is normal, Just so everybody knows, it's very normal to
(02:41):
be anxious about a first session. There's a lot of unknowns,
and also going into your first session, there's probably a
lot of things ahead of you that include talking a
lot about hard things, or facing hard things, or sitting
with hard things and letting people see things that you
don't really want anybody to see. So that's enough to
make you anxious. And then also a first session is
(03:01):
a lot different than any other session in my experience,
It's like one part I have to say and go
over all the things as a therapist. I have to
like talk about informed consent and talk about how we
do scheduling and all that. And then also it's another part,
let's get to know each other and figure out what
you need as much as we can. In less than
(03:22):
an hour. And before I talk more in depth about
all of this, I want to give a quick list
of three things to consider before first session that I
think are important. One, get there early. The last thing
you want is to run into your first session like
ten minutes late, all like huffing and puffing because you
couldn't find a parking spot and then you couldn't figure
out which door to walk through, and now you're out
(03:43):
of breath and you're all worked up. And then you
spend the next ten minutes talking about that, and then
talk about how sorry you are and all of the things,
and then you've wasted twenty minutes and you're anxious on
top of your anxiousness. And then number two, give yourself
some free time after the session, so you don't know
what it's going to feel like after you're done, and
you may want some time to just process or just sit.
(04:06):
So I would suggest blocking off an extra thirty minutes
to an hour after a session so you can just
relax and not have to worry about what you're about
to run right back into. You can really just be
with it. And then the last thing is set realistic expectations.
So we're going to talk about some of that, but
your life isn't going to be changed in one therapy session.
(04:26):
Definitely not an intake. You might feel a little better
at times, sometimes you might feel worse, but set realistic expectations.
You are starting something, you are not going to finish
it in one session, and you might not get a
good read on your therapist's personality or style just by
their intake. So I wouldn't write somebody off just by
how they do their intake. I would give them another shot.
(04:49):
If you think you don't like them, try them again
and give yourself a real chance to actually figure it
out now. I personally don't do consultations or like extended
intake sessions. I will just a first session, like any
normal session. It's going to be fifty minutes. Some therapists
do do that. I don't. It just works better with
my schedule and it's just how I do things. When
(05:09):
I schedule a new client, I send them the paperwork
they need to fill out for me, including informed consent,
all the policies, and the actual intake form, so they
can do that as soon as they want, or they
can do it the day before the session. I really
like to have them have it done before I'm going
to see them, because then I get to kind of
like look through it and kind of get a handle
(05:30):
on what we might be working on to kind of
inform me. Now, if you don't, it's not that big
of a deal. We can roll with it. But if
you're somebody who gets anxious about filling out paperwork, or
you're somebody who doesn't really want to do the intake form,
don't wait to the last minute. You can sometimes you
can do it in stages, or you can do it
and you can kind of fill it out but not
in detail, and then you can talk about the details
(05:51):
with the therapist. That being said, you don't really have
to do too much for a first session. It's kind
of a time for a therapist to ask questions, get
an idea of what's going on and how we can
best help. So you don't have to like super prepare,
get all your ducks in a row, write your life
story out. You don't. You get to show up as
(06:12):
raw as possible. I'm not going to really start any
like therapeutic initiative. Really like we're not going to start
the work the first session. Most likely it might feel
like it to you but if I'm kind of formulating
a plan in my head, I'm going to need some
time before we then start to like embark on that thing.
We might talk about stuff, we might start talking about
(06:32):
one specific part of your journey or what you're looking for.
But you don't have to prepare to like get ready
to start some big, huge life changing exercise the first session,
because most likely you're not going to be doing that.
What can be super exhausting, though, is the amount of
(06:53):
information you might be giving based on the questions that
the therapist is going to ask. And it might be
a really emotionally charged information for you, right Like, obviously,
you're going to therapy to talk about things that you
might not talk about with a lot of people, might
not want to talk about with a lot of people.
And the encouragement I would give to you if you're
one of these people is you don't have to give
every single detail in the beginning. You don't have to
(07:15):
answer every single question with a long, drawn out answer.
Therapy is very weird. You walk into a room with
a person that you probably found online, you definitely have
never met before, and you're expected to just like spill everything,
including your deepest darkest secrets, the stuff, like I said,
that's the most difficult for you to talk about, And
(07:37):
it would make sense if you didn't really want to
do that, and it would make sense if it freaks
you out a little bit, if you had a little hesitation.
And I think personally, as a therapist, the relationship you're
building in the therapy room is allowed to be one
that takes some time. So if you don't want to
talk about some of your trauma on your first day,
you are totally allowed to say that. You're allowed to say,
(07:58):
I want to talk about this with you, and I
think it needs to be talked about. I also need
more time before I'm ready to talk about it. That's
a good enough answer. You can also say like, I'm
willing to go this far, but this is when I
need to stop, or I want I'll give you the
gist of it, but I'm not ready to give the
details yet. It's okay for you to say that and
to kind of pace yourself. We're gonna roll with your pace,
(08:19):
especially in the first session. We're not gonna push push, push, push,
push until you feel like you're gonna break, because we
still have to build a relationship and trust and all
of that, and we want you to feel safe and
we want you to feel like you're in the room
for yourself, not to please the therapist. So I really
would encourage you to own that part. If you're not
ready to talk about something or answer something, you can say, hey,
(08:42):
I really want to get to know this space. I
want to get to know you, I want to get
to know therapy. I want to talk about some other
stuff before I get down to that part. That's totally fair.
I also think it's fair to say that you might
lie during your first session. And I talk about this
in my intakes a lot, and I just tell my
and say, there may be some questions I asked that
(09:02):
you're not ready to be honest about, and that's okay.
You can pass or you might lie, And all I
can ask is when you're ready, that you tell me
and that you know I'm not going to judge you
for not being its forthcoming right off the bat, because
I can't help you with things that you refuse to
acknowledge and hear. So i'd rather you come to me
(09:22):
and say, hey, I lied, I actually blah blah blah
blah blah, whatever the lie is, or I wasn't totally
honest about that, or I said that I do this,
but I really do that. I'd rather you say that
and then we can work on things and talk about Okay, well,
tell me why it was helpful for you to lie
about that in the moment. I'd rather do that than
like never come back to something that might be a
(09:43):
pivotal piece of information and I might even have like
a hunch that you're lying about. I'm more interested in
helping you heal the things that you need to heal
than maintaining the idea that you're perfect. Because we already
know we're humans, so we're not, so we can get
that out of the way. We all lie at times.
So I also, I want to give you guys permission.
The sounds weird saying, but I want to give you
guys permission like lie, But I also want to give
(10:05):
you permission to come back around and say, hey, there's
something I need to talk about with you, because you're
allowed to do that. Also, this is important and can
be applied to so much. I think that very often
when we feel a sense of nervousness or anxiety, we
want to hide it or what we want to make
it go away. However, that very well might not be possible,
(10:29):
Like I might not just be able to snap my
fingers and make my anxiousness go away and make myself
just not care about something for the most part, so
I've found it extremely helpful to just call it out.
Then I don't have to spend extra energy trying to
conceal what I'm feeling. I just like get to let
it be. If I walk into a session and say
I'm so nervous, you might be able to tell but
(10:51):
I just needed to put that out there. Then you
get to be nervous, and just the very idea that
you get to do so can calm your nerves. So
even just calling it out well might kind of take
some of that anxiety away from you. And this can
be applied to a lot of stuff, not just therapy sessions.
I think about it like giving presentations, Like when I
can go into something saying like, hey, I'm nervous about this.
(11:15):
If I'm walking into a room or a class or
anything and saying like, hey, I got some nerves I
want this to go well, it kind of lets me
relax rather than sucking it all in and having to
be like cool. Common collected, but inside like kind of dying.
And usually when I'm able to just acknowledge that I
don't have it all together and I'm feeling a little nervous,
(11:36):
I do better and I feel more comfortable and I
get to just be myself. So I would encourage you guys,
if you are feeling really anxious, you can even email
the therapist. Hey, just want you to know, I'm feeling
really anxious about tomorrow. Just wanted to put that out there, period,
and they might email something very kind back. Or you
walk in and that cow are you I'm really nervous.
(11:56):
I don't really know what to expect. I don't want
to talk about this stuff. Or you can just say
I'm nervous, that's okay. When it comes to a therapist,
they probably can spot anxiety and also it's normal and
possibly why you're even there in the first place. So
there's no need to put on a show for the
person who's most likely to see through that show. So
(12:17):
with all that being said, I just want to encourage
everybody who is getting ready to like book a first
session or maybe go to a first session for therapy.
You can just show up as yourself. What's probably going
to happen. You're going to either fill out paperwork there
or you're going to go through paperwork with the therapist.
They're going to ask you some questions, you're going to
answer them. You're going to get to know each other.
(12:38):
You're gonna make sure you both understand the policies and
how things work. You're going to figure out how scheduling
is going to go. You're gonna do a lot of
homeworky things. And then again you're going to go through
maybe the intake, or they're just going to start talking about, Hey,
what brought you in. Let's talk about that. You might
talk about the history of that problem. You might talk
about the history of your family and all. It's like
(12:58):
when you meet a new doctor too, they have to
go through your medical history. It's kind of what you're
going to be doing. And then if there's time left,
you might start working on something. But you're not going
to dig into the deep, deep, deep, deep, deep deep
depths of your stuff unless that therapist just does it
differently than most therapists, or that's really what you want
(13:19):
to do. If you don't want to do that, regardless,
you always get to say I don't want to do that,
and that's something I want to always continue to come
back to. When it comes to therapy, we are experts
as therapists. We usually are the ones in charge of
coming up with a plan, figuring things out, helping you
put some pieces together. And at the same time, you're
the client and you're the most important person in that room,
(13:40):
and you're the expert of your life, and we might
have a hunch about things that might help you get
to where you want to go, but you get to
be the one that says yes, and you get to
be the one that says no. You are in charge
of those two things, and we can't force you to
do anything. And if you feel like you're being forced,
I would call that out, because maybe you are and
the therapist is kind of being inappropriate or pushing too hard,
(14:02):
or maybe that's part of your story and you feel
oppressed a lot with and you feel like you don't
have choices when really you do, and it's easy to
forget that long, long way to say you're in charge.
So I hope that you go to the next therapy
session that you book. Whoever wrote this email, I'm speaking
to you, I hope you go to it and instead
of waiting for that anxiety about the therapy session to
(14:24):
go away, honor it, own it, call it out, and
bring it with you because it might actually be helpful.
Our feelings are tools and guides and they a kind
of show us what we need in life, and if
we ignore them, then we don't ever get to really
get the gift of what that feeling is telling us
that we need. So I hope that was helpful. If
you guys have any questions, you can email them to
(14:46):
Katherine at UNI Therapy podcast dot com. And if you
have any questions, even about episodes, they don't have to
just be personal questions. You can ask clarifying questions of
couch talks, you can ask clarifying questions of episodes I've done.
You just want to email me, just say hi, you
can do that. I hope you guys have the day
you need to have and I will be back with
you on Monday for another episode of You Need Therapy.
(15:10):
If you want to follow me, you can follow me
on Instagram at you Need Therapy and at kat van Buren. Bye.
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