What to expect in your first appointment?
The first session will take approximately 45 minutes. During this time, your therapist will ask the questions to gather background information, including a reason for the assessment and more information about your family, medical and mental health history. Questions may include any other pertinent information that may be impacting your mental health. It is essential to form and build a good rapport with your clinician and assist with screening forms for your therapist to review to identify mental health issues and treatment plans.
During your first meeting, your therapist may ask for supplementary information to be signed, which would allow coordination of care with other providers like Medicare or Private Insurance you may have. The therapist may also invite additional family members or significant others to participate in the session's information gathering and treatment planning portion.
During family therapy session the therapist will ask to meet with all family members at some stage, if not for the first session. The opportunity will be given to get to know everyone to understand better how everyone interacts with one another in the family unit. Most therapists will view the first treatment session as an evaluation period, and the goal is to get to know one another better and see if you are free to communicate your issues. Lifeward therapists might like to schedule separate appointments with different family members. Maybe just the parents together. Children alone might address specific concerns that they don't feel sharing in front of their parents. Therapists might prefer to work with all members together.
The initial assessment will primarily focus on collecting relevant information. We recommend registering for at least one follow up appointment to get to know your therapist a bit better before determining if this counsellor is the right for you. If you determine that the therapist you are seeing is not the right for you, please let them know to make a more suitable referral.
At the conclusion of your first sitting, you and your therapist discuss your treatment options and plan for any concerns you may have.