What to know....
About Starting Therapy
Starting therapy can feel like a big step, especially if you’re unsure what to expect or if you’ve never worked with a therapist before. It’s common to feel a mix of curiosity, hope, nervousness, or hesitation, and all of these reactions are completely valid. Taking this step is often a sign of self-awareness and care, and therapy is designed to meet you where you are, offering support and guidance as you begin the process.
What to Expect
If you are booking for the first time....
When you contact us to book your initial appointment you will be greeted by our virtual care coordinator. She has been specially trained by our clinic director, Dr. Joelle Jobin to help assess your concerns and match you with our most appropriate and available therapist. Depending on availability you will be given an appointment date and time.
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Before your first appointment you will receive an email from us confirming the date and time of your appointment. You will also receive a link to an intake form. The intake form gives us information about you and also about your needs for therapy. This form includes information about consent to therapy services and describes the nature and process of therapeutic services.
Your first appointment
You may feel quite nervous arriving at your appointment for the first time, this is absolutely normal. Remember, we are there to help you, not to judge you. Your first appointment is one where you meet your treating therapist. If you are seeing a student therapist, that therapist may or may not be accompanied by Dr. Jobin. The purpose of this initial session is to really identify the areas that you would need help with and to identify distressing symptoms. This is the evaluative phase of treatment and so may feel different than the treatment itself. We tend to ask a lot of questions and those may seem unrelated but we are assessing the issues, your level of distress and how you're coping and functioning overall.
Getting Treatment
After your first appointment, a follow-up is set up with your therapist or our clinical care coordinator to continue the evaluation and start the treatment phase of therapy. Therapy treatment can follow a short course (8-10 sessions) or can be longer term. On average, most people need to commit for a minimum of 8 sessions before seeing significant changes in their symptoms and well-being. Follow-up sessions should be placed at regular intervals. To obtain best results, weekly or bi-weekly meetings are recommended depending on the nature of the issues. According to the nature of your issues, you are likely to receive questionnaires, reading and exercises to do outside of sessions.