What to expect at your first psychology appointment

Seeing a psychologist for the first time can be daunting. Some may have a bit of an idea of what an appointment may involve, but for many it can be a completely foreign experience.

According to psychologist at The Mind Room, Dr Jarrod White, this trepidation is normal.

“The concept of going to see someone that you’ve never met before and telling them all these things that you don’t want to tell someone in your personal life can feel really strange,” he said.

Despite this, Jarrod continued that “at the same time, it’s a really helpful thing to do.”

He explained that the idea of talking to an objective third party in order to give you feedback on your life has existed for centuries. Despite this, it can be difficult to know exactly how it will look.

Jarrod prefaced that you can really talk about anything. A psychologist’s strengths are in listening to what you have to say, and then guiding the conversation to better understand what is happening for you.

This might be anything – mental illness, finding meaning or purpose in your life or a performance related issue.

The way a psychologist will start to unpack all of this is by wanting to know one thing: What brought you into their room?

To answer this question, it may be worth asking yourself why you decided to see a psychologist in the first place.

If the answer is “I don’t know”, that is fine. Even if the answer is “because someone suggested I talk to someone”, that’s alright too.

No matter what you talk about, any psychologist you see will want to hear what you have to say before incorporating evidence based psychological approaches into their therapy session with you to achieve the best outcome possible.

Jarrod suggested one of the hardest parts of the appointment is actually booking it. After this, it’s about preparing yourself to have a conversation and maybe having a think about why you have booked the appointment in the first place
“If you’ve had a conversation before in your life, you’ll be ready.”

The Mind Room offers individual therapy for a range of health, wellbeing and performance related issues. Contact our reception team to book in with a psychologist, or come along to one of our workshops, or have a chat to us about what other services we provide.