How to prepare for your first online therapy session

Let me start with the reassuring part: you cannot do a first session wrong. You do not need a tidy account of your childhood, a list of symptoms, or a clear statement of what you want. Not knowing where to start is itself a perfectly good place to start, and it is where a large number of people begin.

The three things that genuinely help

1. A space where you will not be overheard

This is the one that actually affects the work. If some part of you is monitoring the door, you will unconsciously edit what you say, and the session will stay on the surface.

A bedroom with the door shut is ideal. A car parked somewhere quiet works and is more common than you would think. Headphones help enormously — they keep my side of the conversation private even when your side cannot be.

2. Fifteen minutes on either side

A session scheduled between two meetings rarely goes well. You arrive still thinking about the last thing and leave straight into the next, which gives the hour nowhere to land.

Fifteen minutes before, to stop being the person who works, and fifteen after, to come back down, is worth more than any amount of mental preparation.

3. A working connection and a charged device

Test the video link before the session rather than at the start of it. Use a laptop if you have one — propping a phone somewhere means spending part of the hour worried about it falling. Plug in, or start above eighty per cent.

What you do not need to prepare

• —A chronological history. I will ask what I need. You do not have to narrate your life in order.
• —The right vocabulary. You do not need to know whether it is anxiety or stress. Describing what it feels like is more useful than naming it.
• —A tidy version. The edited account is the one you have already told everyone. The messy one is the one worth bringing.
• —A goal. "I do not know what I want, I just know this is not working" is a complete and workable answer.

One thing worth thinking about beforehand

If you want to do any preparation at all, sit with this question: what would need to be different in six months for you to say this was worth doing?

The answer does not have to be precise. "I want to stop dreading Sunday evenings" is a genuinely useful piece of information, and often reveals more than a carefully constructed summary would.

What the hour looks like

A first session is mostly you talking and me asking questions. I will explain confidentiality and its limits, ask what brought you now rather than a year ago, and get a sense of the shape of the situation. Near the end we will agree on what we are working on and how often to meet.

There is a fuller description on what to expect, and the free discovery call comes first anyway — so by the time you reach a full session, you will already have met me.

If you are nervous

Almost everyone is, including people who have done this before. Say so at the start. It is useful information, not an awkward admission, and naming it usually takes most of the weight out of it within a few minutes.