What to expect in your first therapy session in Salt Lake City with SLC Therapist Christy Kobe, LCSW, CCTP, EMDR Therapist Utah
Photo of two people sitting close to each other—-SLC Therapist Christy Kobe LCSW shares what to expect in your first therapy session
Are you feeling nervous about reaching out to a Salt Lake City therapist to explore participating in therapy?
If so, you are NOT alone. It’s very common to feel unsure or nervous about reaching out to a therapist. In fact, the majority of people tell me they felt nervous before they reached out to request a consultation with me.
Do you feel like you don’t really have a good understanding of what therapy actually is?
If so, that is also very common. It can be challenging to get a good understanding of what good therapy actually is. You may have seen supposed “therapy sessions” in a movie or in a television series and wonder if your therapy will be like that. Many of the things we see in the movies and on TV are not accurate representations of ethical, high quality therapy, which poor representations contribute to the confusion about what therapy is and what you can expect.
If you’ve heard or seen some things in movies or on TV about therapy and are wondering whether they are true, you can click here to read top myths about therapy.
Your understanding of therapy may also be affected by the people in your life sharing with you about what parts of their therapy was like and you wonder if your therapy will be like that. This is another part of the difficulties in getting a good understanding of therapy because therapy is both a science and an art and the application of that science and art often varies from one therapist to the next. The therapy process one therapist facilitates will also vary from one of their clients to another client because therapy is a very individualized, client-centered process.
Therapy can be defined as an interactive and collaborative process where you seek a safe, confidential to process things you are struggling with to reflect, gain greater clarity and insights, and shift how you relate to yourself, others and challenging situations. In the therapy process, the therapist lends her expertise and skills to help you work through difficult things, see other possible perspectives, improve your relationship with yourself and your relationships with others. Therapists have completed at least 6 years of education and two years training under another licensed therapist to be able to facilitate this process in an effective and ethical manner. Some therapists like me have also completed additional certifications, certificates and post-graduate training to further specialize as a therapist and to gain expertise in treating certain issues and practicing specific therapeutic modalities.
What makes therapy really healing—and what accounts for the biggest positive effects of therapy—is the relationship between client and therapist. That includes the interpersonal interactions between client and therapist, the subjective experiences of each and sharing with each other in the moment, the interaction of nervous systems and co-regulation, body awareness and sharing of that and watching the other respond, felt resonance in your body, the felt experience of not being alone and instead feeling supported and accompanied by another human, and the very human experiences of feeling seen, heard and felt in our messy humanness by another human.
Also, if you’d like to gain a better understanding of what to expect in the therapy process and how to know if your therapist is a good fit for you, click here.
What do you do if you’re ready to schedule a phone consultation with SLC Therapist Christy Kobe?
Please click on the secure, confidential Consultation Request Form link here and enter your information to request to schedule your 45 minute phone consultation with Christy for the fee of $150.
This Consultation Request Form and any emails we exchange are to be used for scheduling purposes only. Please provide a basic summary of a few sentences in the space provided in the form at the secure link below, and I can obtain more details from you during your phone consultation.
After you have submitted your Consultation Request Form at the secure link above, I will email you (and your partner if you are seeking couples therapy) a response to your request from christy.kobe.lcsw@therapyemail.com about whether I have openings for new clients, and if I have openings for new clients, I will send you (and your partner if you are seeking couples therapy) a consultation agreement form to sign electronically from that same email.
Once I receive your signed consultation agreement forms, I will send you the payment link along with the available dates and times for your phone consultation from christy.kobe.lcsw@gmail.com.
Please check your spam folder for both of these email addresses if you do not see/receive a response within a couple business days. When I'm out of the office, I will respond after I return to the office.
What do you need to do to prepare for the first therapy session?
If we mutually decide during the phone consultation that we would like to work together and are a good fit, I will send you some paperwork to complete, sign and submit electronically prior to your first session.
I am immunocompromised, so I'm meeting in person with people who are vaccinated (usually 2 shots) and have received a booster (3rd shot) for COVID-19, and I'm meeting by secure, HIPAA compliant video conferencing with everyone else.
If you would like to meet in person, you will need to read, check off, sign and date the in-person agreement, and submit it to me along with a copy of your booster and completed COVID-19 immunization card(s) at least a week before your appointment. If you don't provide these a week prior to your first appointment, we will need to meet via secure, HIPAA compliant video conferencing for your first appointment.
The remaining initial paperwork only needs to be completed prior to your first session.
Are you feeling anxious about or wondering about what you to expect in your first session with a SLC therapist?
If so, I’d like to share with you here what you can expect in your first session with me as your Salt Lake City therapist to help you feel more clear and confident and hopefully, less anxious about the process.
Our first session will be 80 minutes, and all subsequent sessions will be 80 minutes as well. Whether our session is taking place as in person therapy in Salt Lake City at my office or via online therapy for residents throughout the state of Utah, I will begin our first session by briefly going over a few key parts of the therapy process and answer any questions you may have, which is part of what we call the informed consent process. This helps to relieve lingering anxieties and worries you may have and helps to expand the process of direct communication about your therapy process and strengthens the metaphorical container in which your therapy will take place.
Next, I will ask you to share with me what you’re hoping to get out of the process of working together. I will write down the things you share as your goals and ask for additional information when needed in order to clearly identify what you are seeking.
Then, we will spend the remainder of the session exploring a goal in more depth and the current and past situations and relationships that have contributed to your current struggles related to that goal.
Your main responsibility in the initial sessions will be to be open and honest in sharing with me. We will engage in this process of exploration at a gentle, kind pace for you. Most of my clients report feeling relief at the end of their first session to have shared this with a compassionate therapist who gets it, and they report feeling like they are no longer carrying these things alone.
When will you have your next session?
As long as our schedules allow, your next appointment will be no later than two weeks later, and all subsequent appointments once every 2 weeks after that.
If you are wanting to move forward more quickly and create some momentum to assist you in your change, it is ideal to meet on a weekly basis for the first handful of sessions during which I’m gathering information from you. If our schedules allow it and you are able to do weekly sessions at first, I encourage that to enable you to spend less time in distress.
During your phone consultation, we can explore the options and compare schedules to determine whether you would like to meet weekly at first or not.
Will you have homework from therapy with a Salt Lake City therapist?
Once I have a clear understanding of the problems you are facing, I may make some recommendations of things you might practice and apply in your life. This won’t be like school homework though and will rather be “life homework”—things that you can use throughout your life.
What if you don’t feel good about what happened in the first session or you don’t think the therapist is a good match for you?
If you are meeting with me as your SLC therapist and you didn’t feel good about something that happened in our session, I encourage you to kindly share that with me because this process is for your benefit and I would like the opportunity to respond to that and implement that feedback in our process together. While therapy can be work and can be uncomfortable and cause you to stretch outside of your comfort zone, it’s really important for you to feel good about our working relationship and this process. This is a collaborative process and I welcome you sharing with me what you need.
If you don’t think I’m a good match for your needs, please let me know that so that I can explore with you what doesn’t feel like a good match and refer you to a therapist who may be a better fit. My goal is to help you connect with the therapist who is a good fit for you.
I hope this has helped you gain a better understanding of what to expect when working with a Salt Lake City therapist. If you are still feeling stuck, feel free to contact me here through this secure form to request to schedule a 45 minute phone consultation. I’d be happy to get more information about what is going on and help direct you to the right therapist if I’m not the best fit.
Author Bio
Christy Kobe, LCSW, CCTP, EMDR Therapist Utah, is a Salt Lake City therapist who has been practicing in the SLC area since Spring 2003. In addition to completing her licensure as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Christy has completed certification as a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP), completed training and certification as an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapist, completed in-depth clinical training on Polyvagal Theory Informed Trauma Therapy, completed a certification training to help clients struggling to deal with an individual with a personality disorder in their lives, completed all of the Gottman Couples Method Therapy trainings through The Gottman Institute, completed a certificate in Trauma-Informed Parent Child Interaction Therapy at The Trauma Center in Boston, MA, and completed extensive clinical training on the treatment of trauma and attachment taught by international experts on these subjects.
She works with sensitive, high achieving, perfectionistic, or progressive women who are stressed, overwhelmed, burned out, and afraid they are about to break. She is especially passionate about working with clients who have experienced complex trauma, childhood trauma, relational trauma, or religious trauma, including developmental trauma, preverbal trauma, and emotional neglect. Please reach out to request a consultation if you would like to explore the possibility of partnering with her as your therapist.