I thiink it's different based on the person and the T... also what you go in to work on.

With this T, I was working on trauma stuff, so we built a safe relationship and tackled some of the trauma stuff. With other t's, we've worked on the depression and anxiety.
Typical sessions are directed by what I want to address. She lets me pick the topic and what we do with it. Mostly it's me talking and t listening. At first she asked questions and we went over the basics of my history. Then we just talked about stuff for a while to build a relationship...

sorry. I know that's not a great description... It's scary the first few sessions, even after 18 therapists in as many years... it's vulnerable, but you can use it however you see fit...