Preparing for your First Visit
Your first CBT session focuses on understanding your needs, clarifying whether therapy is the right fit, and setting meaningful goals for change. Together, we identify what brings you to therapy, what strengths you bring, and what progress should look like. We will create a clear, practical foundation for working together effectively.
Mark Twain
Assessment: Our first priority involves developing a basic shared understanding of your needs and motivations for coming to therapy at this time. I will be asking you questions such as “what brings you here today?” and “what changes would you like to make?”. By the end of our first session or two, in order to make the most effective use of your therapy, we will want to have made a clear determination of the problem you wish to address and the strengths/ motivations that you bring to your therapy efforts.
Fit: During these initial sessions, we can both decide if I am the best person and if CBT is the best means to provide the services you need in order to meet your therapy goals. If I think that we are a good fit for meeting your needs and goals, I will be able to offer you some first impressions of what our work may involve if you decide to continue with therapy. You want to evaluate this information along with your own opinion about how comfortable you feel in being able to work with me in a CBT framework. Therapy involves a commitment of time, money, and energy, so you want to be careful about the psychologist you select.
Goals: CBT is goal-focused. Well thought out statements of objectives are critical to making effective use of and achieving maximum benefit from therapy. At the end of our first sessions together, we will be able to define initial goals that we will use throughout our work together to monitor progress and suggest course alterations as appropriate. Please take a few moments in preparing for your first visit to consider what you would like to achieve in therapy – in essence, what changes you would like to make such that, when those changes are made, you will know that therapy has fulfilled its purpose for you.
If you are going to be using CIGNA insurance (my only insurance panel), please bring your insurance card with you, and check with your benefits administrator about deductibles and co-pays, as you will be responsible for those fees at the time of service. If you do not have CIGNA insurance, the fee is $225 as is expected at the time of service.
Treatment Contract & Information on Policies and Procedures
