Therapy 101

I had my first session with the new therapist today. I have mixed emotions about it. For one, she wasn't Neil. But then, nobody will be. (Neil is our old family therapist who passed away.) But that is my therapist-standard now. He's all I know.

Anyway, her office is in her house - which I was a little apprehensive about at first, but she has a nice separate room that is her office - so it still felt very professional. At first, I was a bit put off because she spent a lot of our time on the phone with my insurance company to verify to the copay, etc. Then, I felt like she was just chit-chatting with me. However, I think she was trying to build rapport. I'm a bottom-line kind of girl, so I was thinking - "let's get to business". But I guess we do need to get to know each other a bit. I never really had to do that with Neil since he already knew my story.

She has a very nice way about her (aside from the too much chit-chat). She has had similar experiences to me (living in a different city from her husband and IF), but the way she told me those things was in a conversational manner. She wasn't at all like "I know what you're going through - I've been there - blah, blah, blah." She mentioned her feelings about one of her experiences and the water works just started because it was EXACTLY what I was feeling. We talked a bit about what I wanted to get out of therapy and the issues I was struggling with. The time went really fast, so we just scratched the surface.

I'll see her again in 2 weeks. She said she has to write up my diagnosis and my treatment plan for insurance. I'm kind of curious as to what that is as well!