What Happens in Your First Session with a Depression Therapist in San Diego?
If You’re Nervous About Starting Therapy, You’re Not Alone
Learn what to expect during your first session with a depression therapist San Diego!
Whether it is your very first time in depression therapy in San Diego or fifth go around, the initial appointment can be one that brings up some nerves and reservations. It can come with a mixed bag of emotions including relief, fear, insecurities, and gratitude. For some, there might have been an extensive history of holding in emotional needs that results in overwhelm and “not knowing where to start.” Others can feel a disconnect from emotions or unknown that makes it difficult to think of something to say. The initial appointment is an opportunity to get to know you and support orienting to the therapeutic process. Some discussion points will be around initial, “housekeeping,” topics related to consent and the practice specific policies. However, the majority of the time is on introductions and beginning to establish therapy trajectory. Your provider can ask guided questions to assist in getting the conversation started or keep it to an open space to listen if you are wanting to dive in. Whatever would be most helpful and comfortable!
After spending some time getting to know you and the events that brought you into therapy, we will start to collaborate on goals for your time with us and review how therapy may be helpful. There is certainly not a need or an expectation that everything is addressed in the first appointment. Therapy is a process that can go at your own rate, and it is definitely normal to pace appropriately and feel comfortable in what topics we are discussing. And yes, emotional expression is fully part of the process so anger or even crying are very much welcomed.
What Happens Before Your First Session?
It can be helpful to have an overview of the ins and outs that go into getting established as a client with one of our providers. Once there has been an initial connection following the consultation call, the option of scheduling your first session will be available. When pursuing this step, it would be helpful to know whether or not you’d like an in person, virtual, or hybrid sessions. There are benefits and downsides to both that can easily be reviewed with your provider to help identify what is best for your lifestyle. Having a clear understanding of what days or times during the week you can be available for a 55 minute session can assist your therapist in quickly identifying the current openings they have that match those times.
Once your appointment is set and before meeting for this session, there will be a list of forms to complete. One document that may appear boring, but is very helpful and insightful for further information on what to expect when it comes to therapy is the informed consent. This may be a lot of information up front, but is important to review. Another form that will require more of your personal and historical input is the questionnaire. Filling this out to your best ability will allow your provider the option of learning a little more about you and your history before even stepping into the first session. This information is typically utilized to guide further assessment questions during your initial appointment. We ask for at least 30 minutes or so to dedicate to these documents.
When it comes to paying for therapy, there are options of requesting to use insurance benefits or paying out of pocket. This is an appropriate topic to review at the start of therapy in order to ensure there are no financial barriers to the trajectory of treatment. At Diandra Medina, MFT & Associates, we are in network with Cigna/Evernorth and able to bill your insurance directly for services. Each member plan is different so we will verify benefits prior to your initial appointment. For all other plans that accept out of network providers, a monthly superbill can be emailed directly to you to submit for reimbursement.
What Happens During Your First Session with a Depression Therapist?
We hope to make the first session one that is collaborative and assists in providing a sense of relief. This means there is no pressure or expectation that you have a clearly defined goal for therapy or an ability to accurately describe the depression you have been experiencing. We believe the best outcome in therapy is through the collaborative process of your therapist being the expert of mental health treatment and you being the expert of your life. Through this process, the initial appointment is utilized to get to know you. Feel free to jump right into whatever has been troubling you leading up to this appointment. However, if the words just aren’t available in your initial session, your therapist will be prepared with a list of information gathering questions. These may be follow up questions to some of your responses on the questionnaire, or they could be general questions on how you have been feeling lately.
For those that are returning to therapy after past experiences, some questions reviewed might be around what was helpful or unhelpful during previous sessions. The option of signing a release of information in order to collaborate with your former provider might be offered if you or your current therapist believe it would be helpful.
Gaining an understanding of a direction to take that will be most helpful for you will additionally be a topic of discussion. When reviewing together the initial feelings or experiences that led up to seeking a session with a depression therapist, your provider will offer insights on ways in which your depression might be contributing to or even creating some of these problem areas. If there are some initial tools or activities that may be helpful in offering a new perspective or option to relieve emotional distress, your therapist will review in session. The hope is that these skills can be tried out in between sessions so you can let us know if they were helpful or not. We understand techniques are not one size fits all so we love to know what really works or doesn’t work for you!
Do You Have to Talk About Everything in the First Session?
The quick answer is no. During your initial session, and all sessions moving forward, you get to control the pace of what you share. We understand that part of the relationship building process is allowing you to share information as it feels most comfortable.Therapy is just that, a process that unfolds organically. If in your session your therapist asks a question that you're not yet ready to open up on, it is certainly okay to be direct and let them know this is a topic that needs more time before going over. In fact, sharing too much too soon can cause damage to the therapeutic rapport. Trust and safety take time to build. Sometimes our clients come in with a challenging relationship history which makes it that much more difficult to ever feel ready or comfortable in opening up to someone again. Being honest and open about this inner struggle is very appropriate and welcomed. Our team is prepared to offer assistance and interventions to support this opportunity for growth and healing.
In Conclusion
If you have been curious if depression therapy might be helpful for you, please reach out. This initial step will allow us time to go over additional questions you might have, hear more about your experience, and learn whether working together feels like the right fit. Ways to take that next step are to fill out our contact form here. You can also text or call 619-365-9958.