Step 1, First and Second Meetings:
The process begins with an initial meeting to discuss what it is that motivated you to call me. This meeting gives you the opportunity to meet me and learn more about my practice as well as to ask me any questions you may have about me, my approach and my practice. I will also ask you for your perspective on what’s going well, what challenges you are facing, and what has/hasn’t worked for you in the past. Finally, this first meeting gives you the opportunity to determine if there’s a good fit between us, since evidence demonstrates the fit between a therapist and her client are critical to the success of therapy.
If you are living at home with parents, I will also ask to meet your parents early in the process to hear their perspectives and gather family history. This will help that will help me to develop my understanding of you and your family and enable me to assess your situation as accurately as possible. With this understanding, I am in the best position to provide recommendations and treatment that will be most effective in helping you to achieve your treatment goals; I am a better clinician when I have as comprehensive and complete an understanding of my clients as possible and this family meeting is a part of establishing that understanding.
Step 2, Identifying Goals:
After the initial meeting, together we will identify specific goals that you hope to achieve while you are participating in counselling. We will also determine a reasonable timeframe in which you hope to achieve these goals while at the same time identifying concrete ways that would indicate to you that you’ve met your goals. It is important to understand that individuals make change at different speeds, and for this reason, timelines cannot be exact, but are approximate.
Step 3, Program or Service Delivery:
Once your goals have been determined, we will begin to work toward your desired outcomes through regular meetings. Throughout the process, I will check-in with you to determine whether you feel progress is being made toward the identified goals. Any necessary modifications that will make the program or service more effective can be implemented at any time.
Step 4, Final Meeting:
At the end of your program or service, a wrap-up meeting is convened with you to discuss the accomplishments and changes you have made throughout the process. In this meeting I will also provide any further recommendations I think may be helpful to sustain these accomplishments. Of course, just because we’ve had a wrap-up meeting doesn’t mean you can’t come back in the future should you need or want to do so!