If Go to Therapy’ Is on Your Resolutions List, Read This First
Well, it’s that time of year again when everyone is scratching out 2025 until they remember to write 2026, posting their 75 Hard challenges to Instagram, and signing up for gym memberships. Whether it made it to your list of New Year’s resolutions or it’s just something you’ve been thinking about for a while now, you’re probably reading this because you’ve decided it’s time to try seeing a therapist this year.
Congratulations! Starting counselling can be an important part of healing, overcoming, repairing relationships, or just getting back to feeling like yourself after a challenging time. There’s no one right reason to start, and hopefully this article will help you feel more at ease about your first session with a new therapist.
How to Find The Right Therapist
Step one is to find a therapist you feel comfortable talking to. If there are a lot of qualified counsellors in your area, picking one can feel overwhelming. As you look, the best things to look for are their training, professional affiliations, areas of practice, and approaches to therapy. Here’s how to do it:
As you look at profiles and websites of different therapists, it’s easy to get confused by titles like therapist, counsellor, psychologist, psychiatrist, and others. The biggest thing to know is that a qualified professional will list their degree (often a master-level degree like MSW [Master of Social Work], M.A. in Counselling Psychology, or M.C. [Master of Counselling]) and specialities. If you are expecting talk therapy, you will find that format with all but a psychiatrist, whose role is medical more than therapeutic.
Make sure that they are qualified, potentially belonging to a professional organization like the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA), the Canadian Professional Counsellors Association (CPCA), or the Saskatchewan Social Workers Association (SASW).
Take a look at their areas of practice and chosen modalities. These are the areas your therapist has chosen to specialize in. You may know that you’d like to see someone who works with something like grief, anxiety, or ADHD, or you might have a specific situation in mind you’d like to process like the early loss of a parent, infertility, or being a third-culture child in an immigrant family. Take the time to find someone with the specialty you are looking for if you know what you need!
It is also worthwhile to pay attention to the modalities or approaches the therapist you’re interested in prefers to work with (for instance, you be interested in somatic work and nervous system regulation, you may have read about Internal Family Systems and appreciated the approach, or you might have heard good things about EMDR from friends and want to know if it would be right for you). There are lots of approaches to therapy and you can find the one that fits your needs!
What to Expect at Your First Session
Once you’ve found someone you think you’d click with and booked your first session, you might start second guessing yourself or wonder what you’ll actually be walking into (that’s totally normal). While every therapist will have their own way of beginning with a new client, this might help you feel a bit more prepared when it comes to what to expect at your first therapy session:
The first session when seeing a new therapist is all about starting with clear expectations and communication, and beginning to build some trust between the two of you. The therapist should explain things like their background as a professional and their approach to therapy, as well as some key “housekeeping” items like their confidentiality policy, how they prefer to be contacted between sessions, and ways you can go about not continuing to see them if you ever feel like things have changed or you’d like to see someone else instead. They may ask, directly or indirectly about your family history at some point to get a better sense of the things you’ve decided to share with them, but this may not come up right away in the first session.
This session is for both of you to discover if you are the right fit to work together inside the therapist-client situation, so ask questions of your own and make sure you feel confident going forward. While they give you some important foundational information, your therapist should also use the first session with you to ask about your intentions for therapy, what prompted you to look for the support, any past experiences with counselling that they should be aware of, and give you space to share a little about yourself.
Thankfully, this can be a lot less intimidating than being asked to “tell me about yourself” in a job interview. If you’re not sure where to start or what exactly you’d like to highlight, ask the therapist if they can help by going back and forth with you and asking some more questions to help you decide what to share. Your sessions are meant to be a safe place, which means your therapist should let you know that you can always ask to move on from a topic or conversation, come back to something you had forgotten, or tell them you’re not quite ready to “go there” if something comes up that feels too heavy in the moment.
You might feel emotional during this session, or you might not. There is no right or wrong way to feel about starting this journey. And there’s nothing wrong about becoming emotional or feeling vulnerable with a therapist you just met (After all, that’s what they’re there for)!
Finding a Good Fit
Some great questions to ask yourself after your first session with a new therapist are:
Do you feel comfortable speaking with the therapist?
Do you have a good rapport with the therapist?
Did you feel that the therapist was trustworthy, likable, and respectful?
Did they seem attentive to your concerns and focused on what you were saying?
Do they have experience working with clients with similar issues?
If the answer to those questions is “yes,” there is a good chance you’re already sensing that this therapist might be a good one for you to continue seeing. Even though the goal of a single therapy session isn’t to solve all of the problems that brought you to therapy in the first place, hopefully you are feeling like you’re biggest questions have been answered, your concerns and worries about the process have been addressed, and you could see yourself talking to this person about the things that made you think of therapy.
Just like with anyone else you interact with in life, your relationship with your therapist is just that – a relationship! It starts with getting to know each other in a first session, and over time can create a helpful and neutral environment where you can process, find new insight, and try out new strategies to benefit your wellbeing.
What To Do If It’s Not The Right Fit
If you get to the end of that session and feel that this is not the therapist for you, you get to decide how you move forward, and especially after just one session, doesn’t need to be something you worry too much about. You can let the therapist know at the end of the session (or at any point) that you don’t feel this is the right fit for you and you’ll continue looking elsewhere, or that you’d like to look at different modalities and approaches from the ones they use. You can call or email their practice later, or you can decide to just go somewhere else. Be kind and clear, and make the decision that is the best match for your needs (and if you’re still concerned about “breaking up” with a therapist, this article is really helpful).
Conclusion
Finding a therapist for the first time (or the third time, or whenever) can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to. A therapist is a support person, and finding the right one for you can make all the difference as you grow and learn and change this year. Hopefully this article has answered some questions that might have been keeping you from checking “go to therapy” off your list of New Year’s resolutions and helped you feel more equipped and informed as you book your first session.
