What Happens during Therapy?
During therapy sessions, you and your provider will talk about your thoughts, emotions, experiences, and behaviors. Often your therapist will ask you to complete exercises at home by yourself or your partner(s) that are directed at improving your relationship with yourself and with your partner(s).
Therapy begins with an orientation to treatment, an initial evaluation/assessment of your history and symptoms, treatment planning, and then a series of focused therapy sessions to treat your symptoms.
Session 1: Orientation to Treatment/Informed Consent – In this session, we go over what you can expect from therapy and answer any questions you have about the process.
Session 2: Initial Evaluation – In this session, the provider conducts a clinical interview, asking you about your history and symptoms. Typically, your provider will ask about your mental and medical health, family/social history, sexual history, and academic and occupational history to gain a better understanding of you and your symptoms.
Session 3: Brief Emotional/Behavioral Assessment and Treatment Planning – In this session, the provider conducts several screeners with you, such as symptom questionnaires to gain a better understanding of the variety and severity of your symptoms. Based on the evaluation, your provider will work with you to develop your treatment plan.
Sessions 4 and onward: Therapy Sessions – In these sessions, your provider will provide individual therapy focused on understanding and addressing your symptoms. The provider often will utilize a range of research-supported therapeutic activities. For example, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques are often used to challenge unhelpful thinking patterns and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy techniques are often used to help you stay in the present moment. If sexual dysfunction is present, you may be given exercises to practice at home alone or with your partner to increase body awareness and emotional, physical, and sexual intimacy using Sensate Focus techniques or Somatic Sex Therapy techniques. If sexual trauma is present, an exposure-based therapy, such as Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, or Written Exposure Therapy may be used to help you access and process memories about the trauma and reduce your reaction to things that trigger those memories for you.
Typically, individual therapy sessions run for about 50 minutes. If you’d like to include your intimate partner in some sessions, your provider will discuss options, such as inviting your partner(s) into specific sessions or extending individual sessions to allow for your partner to join at the end of sessions.
Often individual therapy begins with weekly sessions and then decreases to every other week or once a month as your symptoms decrease or become less distressing to you. The actual number of sessions will depend on the type of therapy needed (based on the evaluation/assessment), the severity of your symptoms, your engagement with and progress in therapy, and other factors. During the treatment plan, you will receive an estimate of how many sessions are anticipated based on your needs.
What Does It Take To Be Successful in Therapy?
Be informed: Review the informed consent throughout your treatment and ask your provider any questions that might arise.
Be responsible: Attend your scheduled sessions. You are expected to be on time, participate, and complete any at-home exercises associated with assessment/treatment fully and thoughtfully. Pay all fees on time.
Be of mind to learn new skills: Lots of things can get in the way of our ability to learn. One of the most common is the use of substances. Do not use illicit sub- stances, misuse over-the-counter or prescription drugs, or abuse alcohol during your treatment. Another common one is lack of sleep, so it’s important to sessions well-rested when you can. But, most of all, to be successful you have to be willing to participate. Participation means reflecting on your life, listening to content and asking questions, sharing, giving and receiving feedback in group, and completing all in-session and homework activities.
Be safe: It’s important that you’re safe and others are safe during your treatment. This means respecting others’ boundaries. If you have a history of abuse or violence, this also means complying with any conditions of the court and take steps to increase your success at keeping others safe (e.g., avoiding people and places affected by your behavior, engaging others in your safety plan, and choosing to not participate in violence-related activities or nonconsensual/illegal sexual activities).