I really did not like my current T on the first phone call. It sounded like he was distracted and could care less. I would expect a receptionist to be more warm and sensitive than he was on the phone. I told him in the initial contact (an email) that I was very scared and had a lot of bad therapy experiences. He did nothing to assess my comfort, address my fears or see where I was at with coming back to therapy.
He was totally different the first session. Warm, sensitive, welcoming, and so very attuned to my concerns. He has continued to be awesome with me. I think there where a couple things going on with those first two contacts. From my first email he knew I was very scared and he honestly thought I was going to no show or run from therapy. We were three sessions in before he felt comfortable knowing that despite my fear I was committed to giving it a try again. The second is that he gets very emotionally connected to his clients. Until he knows they are going to commit to the process I think he needs to emotionally protect himself too.
My T is also upper middle class to upper class and wors with mostly upper class which has created a few weird moments. My teeth are very bad and from that he assumed I lived in poverty, ate poorly and wondered if I could afford him. He has made other assumptions as well. He is willing to be humble about his ignorance, ask polite questions to fix false assumptions and has really had to take a look at himself because of it.
All in all though he is wonderful with me and I wouldn’t trade him for the world. So I would say to try to give this new T at least the first session. If you are still felling poorly about the connection though I wouldn’t waste you resources sticking around with her.