Consultations

What is a consultation and why do we have it?

A consultation is a key part of therapy. A consultation is usually a brief session that gives the client an opportunity to get to know their therapist and for the therapist to get to know you. The idea behind person-centred therapy was because it was found how valuable the relationship between client and counsellor relationship was to the therapy process, this has been proven by many studies that the relationship is actually a key contributor to therapy. Therefore, a consultation is almost like an interview but for your therapist.

It is your chance to assess whether they are the right fit for you. It is so important to take advantage of this session and ask questions about your therapist. They will also be doing the same to see if they are equipped to be supporting you through therapy and how they may do this.

So how might you go about a consultation?

You might like to prepare some questions for your therapist that are relevant to the therapeutic process. You may ask them a little about themselves to build trust and to ensure you feel comfortable with them, if them opening up to you would make you more inclined to open up to them. You might ask them what their experience is with working with whatever your bringing to therapy.

For example, if you are going to therapy because you recently lost a loved one you might ask them what experience they have working with grief and bereavement. You could ask them about their qualifications, what they are qualified in, where they gained their qualifications.

It might be worth asking what their therapy style is, this then gives you a chance to do some background research and decide if this is a route you would want to take and you could also ask them if they would be willing to use/are qualified to use another methodology with you if you feel it may suit you better.

It’s also worth asking about their policies and procedures, for example how would they handle a crisis situation, this will allow you to feel like in the case of an emergency you will be safe.

Ask your therapist their boundaries!

All therapist will have situations or certain people they will not work with because of either personal reasons or because they are not qualified, it’s important to establish what their boundaries are, the reason for this may be for example you bring something to therapy and they are unqualified and they may have to terminate the therapy and refer you on and this can be really tough on some clients!

An example of my boundaries would be if a client was verbally or physically aggressive towards me, I would terminate therapy and refer on to a therapist who feels more comfortable working with this to ensure I am safe and protected.

The consultation is also a great opportunity to establish your own boundaries so that the therapist can support you and understand your triggers so that they don’t put you in an unsafe or uncomfortable place.

For example, is there any topic that you are aware makes you feel depressed, angry, suicidal that the therapist should avoid completely. These are just some things that you can bring to a consultation but you can make this as unique to you as you feel right. If you take advantage of the consultation it can set the foundation to the rest of your therapy session to ensure you have the best therapeutic relationship for you.