Intake Session
Intake sessions are different than a typical therapy session. It’s important to keep in mind that we likely won’t get to the real “therapeutic” work in an intake session. An intake session is setting the groundwork for future and ongoing therapy sessions through gathering information, setting goals, and building a roadmap for the future.
I start all intake sessions by reviewing confidentiality and practice policies. I want to ensure you know your rights and protections in therapy, as well as expectations and boundaries for our work together. I will take the time to answer any questions or concerns you have about any of the policies. This is the best way to make sure you have as much informed consent as possible prior to beginning treatment.
After reviewing policies, I will do a general safety check to get a baseline understanding of your current well-being, and address any current or potential safety concerns. Sometimes clients are concerned that expressing any safety concerns, like suicidal ideation or self harm, will lead to immediate, involuntary hospitalization. I want to assure you this is not the case. Unless you are an immediate (and I mean immediate) danger to yourself or someone else, there’s no involuntary hospital stay in your future. Best outcomes always mean you maintaining as much autonomy and choice as possible, and I will always use the least restrictive interventions as possible. The more honest you are with me, the more appropriate tools, resources, and supports I can offer.
As part of the safety check in, I will also ask about your access to guns or other weapons. If you do, I will ask how your guns or weapons are stored, and if there is someone in you would trust to hold onto those guns or weapons for you if they became a temptation to use to harm yourself or someone else. I would much rather have a safety plan for those weapons that you never need to use rather than need one and not have one. Asking these questions gives you opportunity to inform me what you’d like me to do as your clinician in the event you needed support with those weapons, helping maintain your autonomy even in the event of an emergency. Your safety is my priority.
After reviewing policies and safety, we move into reviewing your intake paperwork. This is where we begin to discuss in depth what brings you to therapy. During that time I will have my laptop out to take notes and refer to your paperwork to make sure I have all the necessary information and keep you from needing to repeat yourself. As we review your paperwork, we’ll talk about what your goals are for therapy, what you would like to look different at the end of therapy, and discuss any information you think would be helpful for me to know that wasn’t covered in your intake paperwork.
At the end of our session we will make a plan for future sessions. I will share ideas of approaches I think would be helpful. You can provide feedback and accept or reject anything I suggest — I want to tailor treatment to fit your needs and value your feedback and preferences.
I may not always offer an intervention or tool at the end of our intake session because I simply haven’t been able to distill the information gathered for long enough to identify what might be helpful for you based on your goals, needs, and preferences. Rest assured, in the time between our intake session and following session, I will review your paperwork again, review what was covered in the intake session, and create a treatment plan tailored specifically for you.