Speaker 1: Today I'm talking about what you can expect from therapy. I'm really passionate about this topic as someone who is training to be a clinical psychologist. I think it's really important to put the information out there that can help someone make a decision when they're on the fence about whether they might want to go to therapy. So in today's video I'm going to give you five things that you can expect from therapy and I hope if you're considering therapy that this will help you make an informed decision. After this quick intro I'll tell you what you need to know. Welcome to Grad Life Grind. If you're new to this channel, thank you for checking it out. And if you're already a subscriber, thanks for being back again. My name is Arielle and I'm a PhD student in clinical psychology and in this channel I bring you information about the mental health field and talk about my journey as a PhD student. So it's important for you to know going into therapy for the first time that you should feel comfortable. And of course you may be nervous because you're meeting the therapist for the first time. It may be your first time in therapy and I can personally speak to how nerve-wracking that is. So I understand that you might not feel immediately at peace with the therapist or in the therapy room. But keeping in mind that the place where you want to go for therapy or the therapist that you want to work with, you should feel safe there. You should feel safe to talk about things that you might not have told anyone before and that trust and that relationship does come with time. But knowing this going into your experience with therapy might be helpful. Therapy should be safe. Another thing that you should expect from therapy is a little bit of structure. So everybody does therapy differently and by everybody I mean every therapist does therapy different. There are so many different styles and evidence-based treatments, different ways to conduct therapy and depending on what you're going into therapy for there's different ways that a therapist should navigate that. But you should expect a little bit of structure and that may vary like I said, but therapy is not a venting session. It's not a place where you just go in and you talk for 50 minutes straight or 45 minutes straight and then the therapist just listens. You should expect a little bit of structure and by structure I mean the therapist may set an agenda or they may ask you to help them set an agenda of what you want to accomplish in that session and typically there's some flexibility in that agenda, but that may be one type of structure to expect. Another thing that you can expect is when you're going maybe off topic or maybe when your therapist notices that you are activated or something is going on in your voice, in your body, in your face, your therapist may redirect you and that's okay, too. That's why you're there. Your therapist may choose different ways to end the session. Some therapists like to end with a relaxation exercise. Some therapists like to start with a relaxation exercise and your therapist will probably be upfront with you about what their structure normally is and you can hopefully co-create the kind of structure that works for both of you. But definitely don't expect that therapy is just going to be a free-for-all and there may be therapists out there that are super open and let the client choose the structure of the session and that's okay, too. But don't be surprised if there is a little structure. Therapy is a profession. So it's definitely going to be different than talking to a friend or a family member and that's where I think it's important to think about this structure. It's supposed to feel a little bit different. It's supposed to be guided. You're supposed to learn things from it or learn about yourself. So that's something to keep in mind. So I just want you to be ready for some potentially difficult sessions. Not every session will be difficult and not every session will be easy. But I think knowing in your mind that okay, I want to start therapy and I want to feel better and I want to talk about certain things that I've never talked to anyone about, but knowing that that can come with some difficulty and your therapist is there to help you with that difficulty and a lot of therapists want to make sure that their client feels okay leaving the session. They don't want their client to be leaving the session feeling completely dysregulated and hysterical or not okay, but not every session is going to be easy. It's just not and I think if you know that going in it's helpful. One other thing you can expect from therapy are some general policies and just like the structure, this is going to vary by therapist and by clinic if you're seeing somebody who works with other practitioners. So there's going to be different policies depending on where you go. If you get therapy from a hospital, that's going to be different than getting therapy at a private practice. And if you get therapy at a community mental health center, then that's going to be different from the other two. So there's going to be different policies based on where you're getting that therapy and how your therapist works. So being mindful of that and it's really your therapist's job to let you know what the policies are. For example, if there is a cancellation policy, if there is a showing up late type of policy, if there is any kind of policy related to paying for your sessions, all those things should be communicated to you fairly early in the therapeutic process. And you can expect that your therapist will let you know when there's a change in policies or when they need to take some sort of action. So I'm thinking specifically as I'm talking about this, I'm thinking about confidentiality and confidentiality laws vary in different places. So it's really on your therapist to let you know the most current information for your work with them. But there are times where therapists may have to breach confidentiality for various reasons, for your safety or for the safety of others. And those policies are really important to hear from your therapist, understand them so that you're not caught by surprise by anything during the therapeutic process. But if you're going to therapy, expect that there will be some policies. Some of them are going to be just like you're seeing any other type of doctor or medical professional and some of the policies are going to be a little bit unique to the therapy experience. But just keeping all that in mind as you make your decision about therapy. Finally, the last thing that you should be aware of if you are thinking about going to therapy is that therapy takes work outside of the therapy room. So you can expect to have to do a little bit of your own work when you're not in your sessions. So your therapist may give you homework. They may give you worksheets. They may ask you to journal or do different things and that's something that you will decide together. But you can't possibly change your life with one hour a week of therapy and the therapeutic hour is actually 50 minutes or 45 minutes. So you definitely can't change your life with once a week, 45 minutes. You have to do some work on your own. You have to take the things that you learn in therapy and apply them in your life, in your day-to-day life. So you can expect that if you're going to therapy, you're going to need to do some things outside of the therapy room. And like I said, your therapist will tell you what those things are and will help you go through that process and you'll probably come back to therapy and say, I did this homework and this is how I felt or this is what happened and that's part of the process. But don't expect to do a few sessions of therapy and then nothing outside of therapy. And if that's your expectation, then I guess that's okay. But you won't get as much from it as you would if you're willing to put in the work outside. So that was five things that you can expect from psychotherapy. I hope that this video was informative and helpful for you. And if you learned anything new from this video, I would love to know what you learned. So leave a comment and let me know which of these five or maybe all five of these were brand new information to you. Let me know what you learned from this video. And if you liked it, please hit the like button and also subscribe to my YouTube channel. And if you're looking to support Grad Life Grind in any way, then there will be a link in the description for this video for my merchandise. I sell Grad Life Grind merch now. We have t-shirts, we have sweatshirts, we have stickers, and a lot of other great things. And the work that I do for Grad Life Grind, the content I provide to you, I do it completely for free. So if you want to support me in any way, you can go ahead and shop at the Grad Life Grind store. Thanks so much for watching this video. My name is Arielle. My goal is to inform you, to inspire you, to spark an interest in you, and hopefully also entertain you. I hope you'll be back soon.