What to expect from our therapy sessions together
Embarking on the therapeutic journey is a courageous step towards personal growth and self-discovery. Whether you're well acquainted with therapy or about to start your first session ever, it's entirely natural to have a mix of emotions. Excitement, curiosity, and a touch of anxiety or uncertainty may accompany you: will I connect with this (new) therapist? Can I trust them enough to openly share my experience? Will they delve into moments from my past that I may not remember or not want to talk about? How much should I share? Where do I even begin? To demystify and ease the process, here’s a glimpse of what you can expect during our sessions together.
1. The Discovery Call
To begin with, we set up a free 15-minute discovery call. This is an opportunity for us to get acquainted, briefly discuss your intentions for the therapeutic journey, and determine if the support I can offer aligns with what you're seeking. If it feels like we're the right fit, we can then schedule our first session together.
Many new clients often wonder about preparing for the initial session. My advice is straightforward: just come as you are. If you'd really like to do something in advance, you might want to reflect on what you most want for yourself from the therapy process, but this is not mandatory.
2. Our First Session Together
In our initial session, we dedicate time to further clarifying your intentions for the therapeutic process. What is it that you most want for yourself (even if it may not feel possible or realistic)? This step is important because it gives us the red thread for our exploration together and helps us stay focused on what is most important for you. If it’s not completely clear to you what you want for yourself, worry not - we start from there.
Once we have a clear understanding of your intention, we can explore together what might be getting in the way of you experiencing more of what you desire.
If you're grappling with symptoms that are affecting different areas of your life, we can explore them with curiosity and see what they might be trying to communicate to us.
If you have been in therapy before, I'd also like to hear from you what felt helpful for you in those processes.
A common question I hear from potential new clients pertains to personal history. Many people worry that therapy may not be effective for them because they may not recall past experiences. This concern makes sense given the historical emphasis on recounting the past in traditional therapeutic approaches. The new generation therapeutic approaches such as NARM, however, recognize that healing doesn't happen when we re-live or recount the past (actually that may in some cases support retraumatization), but in the here and now, in a supportive relational field, as we get to relate to ourselves and our adaptations differently. Hence, one does not need to recall or recount the past to experience the change in the present.
Instead of going for an ‘archeological digging’ into the past, we focus on what unfolds moment by moment in our current experience, trusting that what is relevant from the past and you carry over into the present will spontaneously emerge. Instead of “working with the past”, in NARM, we explore the ways in which you adapted to it and how you may carry those into the present.
3. On-going Sessions
In both the initial and ongoing sessions, we embark on a joint journey and explore from a place of curiosity what might be holding you back from experiencing more of what you desire in your life.
NARM is not a solution-oriented approach, but a depth-oriented, inquiry-based therapeutic model that tends to resonate most with those who are open to exploring their relationships with themselves and others. Our explorations may involve slowing down the recounting of day-to-day stories to discern aspects that might be overlooked in the hustle, jointly inquiring into your relationships with yourself and the people or circumstances around you, being curious about what unfolds in our sessions, as well as about your experience at all levels (cognitive, emotional, somatic, physiological). Together, we explore various patterns, noting what repeats and what's new, bring awareness to your capacities and strengths, and work towards loosening shame and self-rejection to foster a greater sense of aliveness, joy, and spontaneity.
4. Our Closure Session
The closing therapy session is a valuable opportunity to revisit initial intention(s), reflect on the progress made, share what worked and what could have been better for you, and prepare the transition out of the therapeutic relationship. I welcome notifications with at least one session before the last one, so that we can make space to discuss any remaining concerns or questions and ensure that you leave the therapeutic space with a sense of closure and empowerment.
Instead of a closing note
As we embark on this self-discovery journey together, my commitment and hope are to offer a space where you can feel safe enough to bring curiosity to parts of yourself that you may never have dared to examine alone. To parts of you that you might have always hidden or shamed yourself for. This journey may not always feel easy, and I don't promise that you'll love every step, but I firmly believe that there is nothing more settling and transformative than the journey towards the parts of ourselves that we’ve exiled in the darkness (because yes, we all have those).
I don’t believe in quick fixes or shortcuts and I cannot make the hard stuff disappear. What I do believe in is the power of together as we navigate life’s challenges and hardship. And what I can do is to be with you in the process, to be curious about your experience, to be a neutral mirror, and join you in exploring together what might hinder your connection with your innate wisdom, autonomy, and the spontaneous impulses guiding you towards connection, joy, and aliveness.
I don’t give homework or home assignments because we need to do less, not more. Contrary to conventional wisdom, many of the things we seek for ourselves are not attained through sheer will or effort. As Dr. Laurence Heller, the creator of NARM, beautifully says, the more we try to change ourselves, the more we prevent change from occurring. On the other hand, the more we allow ourselves to fully experience who we truly are, the greater the possibility of change.
If you have any further questions or curiosities, let’s talk. You can book a free, 15-minute discovery call or drop me an email if none of the timeslots available work for you.
