Dr. Maria Georgiou Shippi

The initial steps in starting your cooperation with a psychologist can be stressful and somewhat intimidating.  There are considerations regarding the suitability of the professional to help you achieve your aims in therapy, whether you feel like you can open up to them, how long therapy will last, how you know therapy is effective. Thereby, it would be beneficial if I was to clarify a few things for you, with regards to initiating our cooperation.

As part of starting our therapeutic relationship, we will begin with a shorter appointment, which serves as an initial assessment. This will last for approximately 35 minutes. During this appointment, you will be sharing with me a summary of why you want to engage in therapy now, what you hope to achieve through therapy, any concerns or any difficulties you expect to meet in the process of doing so. Time will also be dedicated in discussing my ability to help you meet your goals and answer any questions you might have regarding the way I work.

As part of the initial assessment, we will also use a questionnaire which will help us track any changes in your level of difficulties, daily changes in your routine, along with your progress. Moreover, we will be covering any history of physical or mental health difficulties, medication and habits, so we can both get an idea of the different elements influencing your wellbeing.

I work with the belief that we do not exist in isolation, thereby our wellbeing is influenced by biological, social and psychological elements in our daily life. Thereby, I believe that we need to pay attention to all the forces that seem to have a pull on you. This is beneficial in decreasing self-blame regarding your situation, increasing adaptive behaviours, and planning methods and procedures you could use which are specifically tailored to your circumstances. For example, imagine that you are employed in a demanding job post, with long hours and great responsibilities. The things we will be discussing and trying out, will be extremely different if we are to compare them to interventions used in another therapeutic relationship where the client is unemployed. Although both clients might be aiming to decrease their anxiety around the issue of work, one is dealing with being overworked while the other with the uncertainty of unemployment and underutilised resources. As such, although the aim from therapy to work with anxiety in both cases, the methods used to address this will differ significantly.

Following our assessment, if we are both happy to continue our cooperation, we will proceed with booking our following sessions. These run for no longer than 50 minutes. During this time, we will be aiming to foster an environment where you will feel heard, safe and understood. I will be asking you to set the agenda of where you would like to concentrate during the given session, trying to attend to what your priorities are. I will be checking in whether I understand what you mean, so we are on the same page throughout our sessions. I appreciate your insight regarding the potential helpfulness of a proposed action, as I strongly believe that you hold valuable insight regarding what might or might not be helpful for you. Moreover, I will be trying to combine your own knowledge with my own, by sharing my insight and asking you to share your opinion regarding the process and methods we will be using in our sessions.

We will be checking on your progress, whether you are happy with the way things have been evolving and our cooperation every 4-6 sessions.  During this time, we will be holding a “therapy review” to explore whether things are working out for you, if there is anything you would like to change etc. Thereby, I urge all my clients to be honest in our sessions, so we can redirect our attention and methods in areas they feel are priorities.