I did have intake forms to complete before my first session with T. I remember a couple were specific questionnaires on my thoughts and feelings and sleep patterns, etc. This turned out to be so T could determine how depressed/anxious I was in general. I also remember having to fill out short answers to other life history type questions. I recall a Yes or No question about abuse in childhood which gave me pause and I had to consider whether to answer truthfully or not.

I don't actually recall my impression of T on the first session because I was so focused on giving him my background and trying to make him understand in that one single session how miserable I was. The next few sessions my impression was that he was very scientific and non-interactive with the emotions. Since then he has softened and become less factual and more open and emotion based.

But my T is extremely CBT oriented. Like way up there at the top of the CBT therapist gurus... if there is such a thing. And I think he was just using his CBT approach on me at first and when that was clearly not going to be the quick answer he softened and branched out into more relaxed talk therapy mixed with CBT.