What Can I Ask my Therapist when we First Meet?

Great question!

First, you don’t need to ask your therapist any questions when you meet for the first time. You can often discover a ton about him or her from how they conduct themselves during that first meeting. You can get a feel for them and can decide how you would like to move forward.

However, if could be wise to ask some questions to check if your instincts or feelings are accurate… but don’t ignore that gut-feeling and tune into that even if you do ask some questions.

So, here are some questions that could help you determine if you and this potential therapist are a good fit to work together… cuz that’s what it’s all about.

If you are comfortable sharing what brought you into therapy, a good question could be:

How do you see what’s going on and is this something you are comfortable/ skilled at working with?

This question is a nice one because we often get so wrapped up in the stories we tell ourselves that it’s nice to get a different perspective. This perspective could help you understand how the counsellor sees issues that people struggle with. This can help you decide if you think seeing it this way is something that lines up with how you see therapy going.

What approach do you see working best for me?

Your counsellor probably has an integrated approach to counselling that may include different approaches to counselling. Even if you found this counsellor because they practice a specific approach it is important to ask, ‘what does using that approach mean to you?’ Most approaches in therapy have different way of enacting them in the counselling office… is how they see that approach in line with how you see it?

Do YOU think we would be a good fit to work together… why?

Counsellor have an ethical responsibility not to work with folks who are out of their are of competence. However, this is a big grey area and is often not thought about by therapist because we often think that we can work with any folks because we want to help! This can give the therapist a chance to reflect and think about this question carefully.

Let’s say that… hypothetical situation, how would you deal with that?

This is a great question because if you are not comfortable sharing personal stuff on your first meeting, you can present a similar situation in the imaginary world to see how they would respond and deal with that. From their answer, you can see a lot about how he acts in the office and what their values as a counsellor are.

Can you share a little bit about yourself as a person?

You can discover a lot about your counsellor based on their response to this question. There are big disagreements with how much of ourselves therapists should share with the folks that sit across from them, and each therapist has a different approach to this questions, ranging from not sharing ANYTHING about them at all, to sharing things that are relevant to your needs to connect or to offer a different way of seeing your situation to being a complete open book.

Don’t forget that when you ask these questions you are not just listening to the words but also your instincts and gut feeling. There is a lot of info stored in your body and that is just as, if not more, important than the actual answers that you hear if you choose to ask questions during this 30 minutes.