My T started the first session by asking what brought me there. He didn't push me to disclose anything or make me feel pressurised to talk.

He annoyed the heck out of me at first because I wanted to know 'the rules' and he wouldn't tell me what was supposed to happen, how therapy was supposed to work or what I was 'meant' to do. I felt like he was refusing to help me.

Seven months down the line, I have a different perspective. I think he stayed very 'blank slate' about how therapy was 'supposed' to work because everyone needs something different from it. I seem to have spent a lot of my therapy time living out a teenage rebellion I couldn't have at the time.

My T never told me what was or wasn't supposed to happen in the room, other than saying I didn't have to do anything except show up, so I just went ahead and did what I needed to do. It just sort of happened.

So now I'll say that, when you first start therapy, what you're doing is forming a connection, or a relationship (though not everyone likes to call it that), with your T, and seeing what comes out of that.