Starting therapy...

[Kimaru]

I have my first real appointment for therapy on monday. I like the lady well enough, last appointment was 30 min long and she told me about they way they do things there and told me when my next appointment was. It was over a month away for another 30 min appointment and she said that was pretty quick to get another one. I appreciate that my doctor listened to me and referred me and that they made room for me and all but will 30min sessions spaced over a month apart really do that much good? I'm on a 3 month trial to see how things go which is basically 2 sessions. Is that the norm for therapy? I just feel that with such short sessions spaced that far apart I'll get totally distracted between them and take forever to make any progress. I really want this to work but I'm worried that I'll lose interest because its so long between sessions or I won't be able to make progress fast enough and they'll give my spot to someone else. What's it like to start therapy, do they give you time to open up or expect you to spill your guts to them right away? The system is really over crowded so I'm really worried about losing my spot if I don't do well enough. I already got a long lecture on my first appointment about if I give them pretty much any reason at all they'll give away my spot because the waiting list is really long...

[ironholly]

They might do that for the first few sesoins and then when you have your revew they might up them to say every foughtnight.
I had my for a hour weekly from the start over a year ago, but before thay i have a mental health nurse and i never got regular apoments somtimes 2 weeks some times a month
But if you think you need more you need to tell them voice your concerns

[Rhea-Billie-Tate]

It does sound as if your appointments are very spaced apart, I can understand your concern. I know that when I tried to reduce my therapy to an hour every other week (for financial reasons, I pay privately) I really struggled to get as much out of it because it felt like starting again every session, even though I've been with the same therapist for 9 years. I think it's worth asking what the long term plan would be and if there's any way of increasing the sessions if that's what you feel you need. Different services work in different ways, it may be open-ended or time limited to a certain number of sessions, they might see you every week or every other week or less often. They may set "homework" for you to do between sessions or they may not. You are totally within your rights to ask any questions you have and to have the process explained to you so that you can decide if it's the right course of treatment for you, don't be afraid to question them.
As far as how quickly they expect you to be able to "open up", the vast majority of therapists and services expect that it will take a while for you to feel comfortable and build up the trust to start to really get into things. I think it's a lot to ask of someone for them to be able to really talk to a near stranger about difficult issues.

Sorry if that's not much help.