What is an initial intake session?
As part of the intake process, following the 90 min initial in-person consultation (described in details here), once you and your spouse agree on wanting to work with me, this is our first step.
[This is the second part of the 2-part series called what is the difference between an Initial In-Person Consultation and the Initial Intake Session – You can find the former HERE.]
The initial intake session is three hours in length, and typically occurs on a different day than what you regular meeting slot will be.
You both need to come and we have several different things that we cover during our time, as described in detail as you keep reading below.
I will say – I know that three hours seems like a really long time, but I can tell you that in my experience, my clients and I get to the end of our time and the response is:
What? We are done?
That was the fastest three hours ever.
And no, I am not making this up.
You can ask anyone.
Needless to say, it goes by really fast.
Don’t worry – We take breaks.
My back doesn’t like me either when I sit for three hours straight.
I have snacks on hand and drinks in the waiting room [no wine, sorry – but you two are certainly welcome to go get a glass together someplace close by after we are done:)]
Now, let’s look at what actually happens.
Partly because my degree is in Marriage & Family Therapy and partly because of what I’ve seen doing this work with couples, I have come to believe that who we are today has a ton to do with where we come from.
What that means is, even though it is just the two of you sitting on the couch, each of you bring what I loosely call ‘your tribe’ with you.
The people that, up until this point in your life, influenced you and who you have become.
That is why I do what’s called a genogram with all my clients – and that is where we start.
For me to be able to be helpful to you as a couple, I need to know where you are coming from and what that looked like.
If you don’t know what a genogram is – in simple terms, it is a specific kind of a family tree that we draw up first.
Then, I ask general questions and mark up the tree accordingly from there, color-coded and everything.
We do a genogram with both of you, each taking about 45/50min.
This is obviously super informative and helpful for me, always.
I learn a ton.
And – contrary to common belief – more often than not, the feedback I get is – couples learn a thing or two about each other, too.
Even if they have been married for twenty some years.
The other thing that we do is taking some time to solidify your goals – as we initially discussed them during the initial in-person session.
Since we are working together, I find that in order to get anywhere, you need to know where you are going.
You and I both do.
Because – if you don’t know where you want to go, how on earth would you ever get there?
So we would talk about what this would look like.
What you and your relationship would look like at the end of our time together.
Yes, in specific terms.
We will write down exactly where you want to be.
That way we have our plan ahead of us, and we can start chipping away at it.
Because that’s why you came.
We will also decide on the order of things.
It’s important for me to know if any of the items on your list are a higher priority than the rest. That way we can get started appropriately.
Home-what?
Yeah, I give homework. (spoiler alert!)
If that’s not something you are interested in doing, then I might not be the right therapist for you.
I am of the belief that coming to therapy once a week and then doing nothing the rest of your week is not enough.
In the same way that going to gym once a month will not bring you the results that you are after – if those have anything to do with you getting closer to running a race, or losing some weight or getting more flexible.
Enough said.
Anyway, I get distracted —
Your first homework, then, the new client paperwork — I will ask that you fill that in and bring it along.
And no, that is NOT what homework will typically look like.
And, I get that on first glance, it will look a lot – many pages, many things to fill in.
BUT – if you have already done any therapy in the past, you will know this: I will need some signatures, there are things in the Rights and Responsibilities document that I both need you to be aware of and be able to sign off on, and so on.
We will do more interesting things going forward.
I promise.
But I will have reviewed those forms, we will talk about any questions that came up for you, or for me as I reviewed it, I might mark some of it up in order to fill in any blanks, if there are any.
That about outlines it.
If you have any questions about any of this, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Again, if you wanted to read the other half of this series and find out what an Initial In-Person Session is in comparison, you can read about that here.
