I've seen several therapists. First appointments for me tend to go like this:

- Show up early. There's *usually* a clipboard in the waiting room for new clients to fill out paperwork. (You might not have to if they had their paperwork online and you did it in advance). Some therapists have minimal initial paperwork, and some have crazy long forms that will ask you to detail out every distressing incident in your life. If there's anything that you're not comfortable with, you can skip it. If the therapist pushes, you can tell them that you're not comfortable talking about it yet (I find this much better then getting triggered and unable to talk about anything, and gives you a good way to gauge how well a therapist will respect your boundaries).

- The therapist *should* be close to on-time. Some will come out, collect the paperwork, then disappear for a few minutes to review it, but some will take you right back.

- Sometimes it's hard to tell where to sit, depending on how the office is set up. It's ok to ask. Or just pick the most comfy chair if you're feeling brave

- I don't know why, but the therapists I've seen always seem to want to start with the unstructured, "so, what brings you in today?" type questions. So, you might want to think a little ahead of time about how to summarize your situation (or not, if you're not the anxious planning type).

- They'll probably have plenty of background questions for you. At this point, they're trying to get an overview of your issues, your family history, what's going on in your life now, and (I'm guessing here) how you approach things.

- It's 1000% OK to bring in questions for them. There might be things that you'd like to know to help you decide if it's a good fit. Even if there's not, I'd encourage you to ask a few questions to see how they react. It's a good way to see if they can a) answer them without getting defensive, b) poke a little bit for unresolved craziness in the therapist, and c) see how well they can understand and respond to your questions. I'd be worried if I asked questions and the therapist wasn't able to explain things in a way that felt clear to me, or if they were constantly misunderstanding my questions, or going off on long tangents and taking too much time.

Examples:
- One therapist I saw had been recommended to deal with dissociative stuff. I was asking her about "phase oriented treatment", because I was told that I needed that, and had no clue what it was. Her response was, "Hey! I've been a therapist longer than you've been alive... " - wow. I would have been OK if she had just told me she had never heard the term before, and maybe explained how she approached things, but that felt very defensive to me, and like she wasn't going to welcome any questions (which is bad for me, I ask a lot of questions.)

- Different therapist, I told him that I didn't understand therapy, and wanted him to tell me how it worked and what the "rules" were. I really, truly was trying to figure out what I needed to be doing. His response started with, "well first off, I'm not going to sleep with you... " I didn't hear anything else, that completely freaked me out. It felt like it came out of nowhere, and in retrospect, I'm sure he thought he was being *reassuring*, but it really was just plain creepy. Ick.

Last thought, at the end, the therapist will likely ask if you want to schedule another appointment (unless they tell you outright that they don't feel qualified to deal with your problems, I've never seen that happen on a first visit personally though!). It's OK to say that you need to think about it, and will call them. I like that approach, so that I can go home, reflect on the session, and see how I feel. If you feel like it's a great fit, by all means schedule another visit right away. But, it's no big deal if you want some time to think about it.

Good luck! When's your session?