Not usually. I bug him to pick a topic but he never has and I'm glad he doesn't, because I will get to the topic/issue on my own, even if I talk around it or about stupidly random and unimportant things first.

I had another therapist who would pick topics or ask me questions to get going. You know what it turned into? Him talking me into talking and that wasn't healing. I thought it was what I needed at the time, but I see now, that it created huge problems.

You have to want to have the conversation yourself and bring it up for there to be healing, IMO. It definitely is uncomfortable, especially at the beginning. Sometimes I start with random things like where I parked that day (I refuse to park in the therapy parking lot), the weather, or anything completely pointless.