My first meeting with a new person

This is not, of course, a new person, but it is someone who is new to me. The first meeting is just an introduction, to get a sense of what brings this person here at this particular time, what the problem is, how long has it been going on, etc. It is really a bare-bones introduction to someone whom I might get to know more fully. A little bit at a time, over time. Who will this person turn out to be? What I don’t think about att his time is something I have discovered over and over again—that the process of getting to know this new person changes me in some way, making me different than I was before. Who will I turn out to be? This is something that I don’t think most people who are in therapy really know—that they are not the only one who becomes changed by the process of psychotherapy.

The first meeting with a psychotherapist

This is new, having a blog, not knowing how it will turn out. It’s a little like meeting with a potential new patient, someone with whom I might work over a period of time to help them resolve emotional difficulties. It is with some excitement, never knowing how this first consultation session will go. It is a meeting to check each other out, to see if there is some meeting of the minds and hearts that warrants meeting again. I think about whether I think I could be helpful to this person, and how I might be most helpful. And this new person can think about whether we “clicked”, seemed compatible, whether she or he felt reasonably comfortable talking with me about matters that are usually not so comfortable to talk about. And then to be considered is whether what I said made sense to her, or gave her a new perspective, something worthwhile thinking about.