Before you arrive
If you are claiming a Medicare benefit, your psychologist must have your referral before the first session, so send it through when you book along with your Medicare card details. If you do not have a referral, that is fine — you can still be seen, you simply pay the full fee.
You do not need to prepare notes or rehearse your history. If it helps you to write down the three things you most want to change, bring that.
The first twenty minutes
We start with what is happening now: the problem as you experience it, when it began, what makes it better or worse, and what you have already tried. We will ask about sleep, work, relationships and health, because those are usually part of the picture rather than separate from it.
We will also cover confidentiality and its limits at the start, so you know where you stand before you decide what to share.
The second half
From there the conversation turns to direction: what a good outcome would look like for you, which approach suits the problem, and what the first few weeks of work would involve. You are not committing to anything at that point — you are deciding whether this is the right fit.
Nothing confronting happens in a first session. Where treatment later involves exposure or trauma processing, the steps and the pace are agreed with you in advance.
What you leave with
A working understanding of what is keeping the problem going, a plan with a review point, and usually one thing to try before the next appointment. If we think another service is a better fit — a psychiatrist for medication questions, a different clinician, or a service closer to home — we will say so and help you get there.