I have seen a fair few therapists in my day and I’d say that I’d have a fairly good idea of whether we clicked or not after that first session. I’m well aware that therapists who I didn’t click with clicked really well with some of their other patients. I was surprised, however, at how many therapists thought that because I was seeing them once I was seeing them for the long haul.

That was one thing that really clicked well for me with my current therapist: He said that in the initial session we would see whether we felt we could work together. It was a mutual decision. He asked me some questions. He asked me if there was anything I’d like to ask him. He asked me what I’d like to work on / talk about. Of course that approach might not click well with other people… I guess different people are different. Some might like to focus on one particular problem in that first session, but others might not.

Most people don’t know this, but it’s okay to not like the first therapist you go and see. So many people build it up in their minds that they feel they can’t go through it all over again with a different therapist, even if it’s obvious there’s no connection or rapport between the therapist and client.

One needs to shop around for a good therapist, just as one would for any health professional, be it a dentist, family doc, etc.

Or perhaps they moved to a different therapist and didn’t stop after a single session after all.