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My new therapist's office sets a recurring bi-weekly appointment for their patients, which I find fantastic, and it's been a great start, but it's still relatively new and we're getting familiarized enough to work out a specific treatment plan, so every two weeks, she'll open with a genuine: "How are you?" and it's a toss-up in my head between: "Are you sure you wanna know? Or should we get shit done..."
I have never know if it's a 'therapist' "how are you? " or a 'this is how two humans begin conversations' "how are you?"
It's both. It's an invitation to bring up anything recent, but you can also treat it like a normal greeting if you'd rather not go there right now.
It's also open ended enough that you can say "I'm doing well, I've been thinking about my childhood a lot lately" and take the session wherever you want organically. It could also just lead into small talk while you get comfortable
This is actually helpful
Glad to hear it...I also found it helpful to know about the "pregnant pause". It's when they just look at you silently, waiting for you to continue. It makes you want to keep talking out of awkwardness
It helps me to think of that like an invitation, I'll think if anything else comes to mind and if I've got nothing left to say I'll just wait it out
mine keeps mentioning eventually we'll transition from weekly to bi-weekly. I guess I must be too fucked in the head for it to happen yet though