What to Expect in Therapy: Finding Your Lantern in the Fog

Have you ever been on a family vacation that was the exact opposite of relaxing? Maybe you were on a road trip and fought with your sibling the entire time, or you were the parent or spouse that had to manage everyone’s expectations during the trip.  Either way, the high stress and anxiety that comes with certain trips and visits will leave us drained and saying that we need a post-vacation vacation. The therapeutic space offers us a place to unburden ourselves of the emotional baggage weighing us down in our daily lives. However, many people have told me therapy has rarely felt like this for them. Rather it has felt more often like a space where they were being judged or pushed in a direction that didn’t coincide with their best interests, leaving them further adrift in a Fog of Hopelessness without any Lantern of Empathy and Safety within to guide them. I consider it my job to bring you this Lantern, and it’s natural to be nervous about what to expect when I approach you in the Fog.

The Therapy Dance 

There is often a nervousness for clients that comes with the first few therapy sessions, feeling unsure of what to expect in therapy; a sense that a magnifying glass is being put upon you for the sterile purpose of satisfying clinical curiosities.  Therapy isn’t an interrogation, however; it’s an invitation.  The reality with me is that I really just want to learn more about your life and have a conversation with you that assists me in understanding the obstacles you will no longer have to navigate in isolation. Tearing up and crying can be a common experience in the beginning sessions–even the consultation phone call–for those with deep emotional wounds that need tending. There is often a brokenness clients feel from carrying these wounds for so long; I felt this way when I saw my chosen therapist as an adult.  I will not tell you that you shouldn’t feel broken, but I can say that I do know what it’s like to sink into that emotion at our worst times, and to dance with it at our best.  One of my favorite ways to describe therapy for trauma, and how we work with all emotions, is not with the goal of controlling them or not feeling them, but with the goal to learn how to dance with them, with us taking the lead. Rather than resist our emotions, we can create something beautiful if we move with them in tandem. 

At its heart, psychotherapy has two practical goals: discovering what obstacles are stopping you from living a more fulfilling life, and practicing how to navigate those obstacles in sustainable ways. For people doing trauma-informed work, that often looks like a “bottom-up” approach: working our way up from the bottom of the nervous system before moving on to more emotionally triggering work. Think of it like athletic training. Athletes warm up, build strength, and practice skills before attempting their heaviest lifts. In therapy, the first 4–6 sessions often function as a warm-up: building safety, assessing pacing, and co-creating goals. This is where trust is formed. Clients are often worried about sessions just being them talking at me, rather than having a collaborative conversation together.  You might worry that therapy will be you talking at me the whole time. Yes — you will talk about your life a lot. That’s intentional. But therapy is also a two-way conversation: I’m listening closely so I can help shape a treatment plan that fits you. I’ll ask about what you want to change, what would feel different if things shifted, and how quickly you want to move. Those early conversations are where we begin to create forward momentum — slow, steady, and sustainable. 

The Hero’s Journey (with me by your side)

There is an iconic part of the Legend of Zelda games where Link opens special chests filled with unique loot after an arduous dungeon crawl: the music will change into something mysterious and inspiring, while Link digs into the chest and holds above his head the item that will be key to continuing onto the next part of his journey. This scene is one I always think of when I consider what the therapeutic journey is like and what it can do for us as clients. With Navi’s illuminating presence, Link doesn’t have to navigate dark dungeons alone — he has a guide who calls attention to the path and the tools he needs. In many ways, she is Link’s Lantern in the Fog; guided by her light, Link goes out into the world vulnerable and trepidatious, finding his inner courage and learning how to use the tools necessary for doing hard things and surviving them. Though Link’s destiny is predetermined, yours is not.  Together, we explore the ways in which you can shape the trajectory of your life and figure out what obstacles can be removed versus what cannot. 

Healing is Heavy Lifting

Practically speaking, after the initial sessions we often do attachment-focused work: questions about your childhood and family relationships that help us see patterns you may not notice in day-to-day living. These questions are always optional, and they can surface hard stories. When they do, I listen with warmth, attunement, and steadiness. While I am known for having a humorous style at times, I consider it to be like a seasoning salt to therapy rather than the main flavor profile, because serious topics need to be treated with compassion and calm. The process of healing ourselves is not a linear one, and sessions will be heavier or lighter than others for this reason. To go back to the metaphor of an athlete, it’s important to counterbalance heavy training sessions with lighter, more recovery focused sessions, and the same is true in counseling. Our emotions are not dissimilar to our muscles in that they are both integrally wired in with our nervous system’s programming, so the principles behind strengthening both are equally similar. This is why work in therapy requires consistency in order to maintain progress and experience the results you are wanting. As therapy continues, we shift from learning what to expect in therapy to learning what to expect from yourself — more self-trust, more clarity, and a steadier sense of peace. This is how therapy becomes nourishing to our life. 

My hope is that this blog will help fuel the flame of the Lantern to glow brightly in the Fog, helping you uncover what is already there before you. The therapeutic space, and other spaces of healing, exist to help us explore and reconnect with parts of ourselves we thought we had lost, but never truly leave us. One gentle step at a time those parts can be discovered anew and readjusted into a life that feels more fulfilling than the life that is within the Fog. 

If you’re wondering what to expect in therapy or you’re nervous about starting therapy, know this: you don’t have to do the work alone. If you’d like to talk about whether we might be a good fit, you can schedule a consultation or read more about my approach on my Services page.