basically there is no bg mystery to go along with the foot long label. Depending on the type of therapist you have and the things you want to work on depends on what your therapy treatment plan is. with some therapists and agencys you have what is called intake where you call and schedule an appointment then on the day of the appointment you fill in papers-insurance, name address and so on and questionaires about different things that people see therapists for such as depression. Then you go home and the agency intake person sends your information on the the person in the agency (usually a supervisor) who will assign a therapist to you. In most cases within 2 weeks of intake you get a call from the therapist assigned to you and between the two of you your first appointment with him/her will be set up. Some therapists see clients weekly, some every other week some monthly and still others have their appointments spaced out to meet their insurance guidelines.

At the first appointment it is what I call breaking the ice - the therapist will ask you general questions name address family children why are you here type questions. You can also ask your therapist any questions. Most times but not always the therapist takes this information and starts writing up a treatment plan so that during the second session the two of you can decide what to work on and in what order if there is more than one thing.

Treatment plans can include face to face sessions with the therapist, sometimes seeing someone for medication and testing purposes.

The face to face sessions include basically what ever ways that you are comfortable in working on the reasons you are seeing that therapist. For me Like I have an appointment tomorrow with my therapist. I will be biking down to her office. I walk into her building and sit down. I always take with me my walkman and something to do while waiting. My therapist comes into the area where I am sitting and says ok you ready. I say yup and follow her into her office. Sometimes we sit quiet and other times conversation just starts right up. Usually by her asking me a question- How are you? Good weekend? and so on. Tomorrows session is going to be a jump right into things one and a half hours long session of working on my house project and my nightly nightmare at the same time. The house project is what I came up with which is a 3 foot high (three story) cardboard version of the house I grew up in. to help with my remembering a nightly nightmare I am having. Basically what happens is my therapist and I put the house together I add anything I remember from the night mare and she asks me questions about the house, things that happened in it and the nightmare. I know that I will be exhausted afterwards because I use relaxation techniques including taking benedryl which has a sort of hypnotic drowsy effect with me after which I need to sleep it off so I'll come home and sleep for about 4 hours.

Normally the topics covered in face to face sessions are both things that you want to talk about and things the therapist would like more information about. Basically a therapist job is to challenge you to think about your problems, and life and think about and act on ways that help you change your life for the better. Therapists challenge their clients in many ways to do this and for me my therapy treatment plans are - Talking with my therapist, art work, workbooks, craft projects, journaling, researching my problems and disorders, locating and researching coping tools (relaxation techniques and so on), classes - parenting, anger management, depression management. Don't let all this scare you. I am working on many areas at once in a custom made 24/7 therapy program for Dissociative Identity Disorder, Depression and anxiety, self harm, and PTSD (nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks) . For me because each problem overlapped into the other I chose to work on all areas at the same time.

Most times the therapist has you work on one issue at a time. The best part of therapy is you get out of it what you are willing to put into it. A person who shoots down everything their therapist wants to talk about and wants them to try is not going to get anywhere, but the client who is open to at least trying something new will have a better experience. No you will not you have to try EVERYTHING they say because if you really are uncomfortable with something they are not going to make you do what you don't want to.