Getting started
Your first therapy session usually lasts 50 minutes. Your therapist will explain confidentiality, ask what brought you in, and start learning your history and goals. It is not a test, and you do not need the right words. Many Saalvio clients meet their therapist first at a free 30-minute consultation, so the full session is not a first meeting.
Maybe you booked it three times before and cancelled twice. Maybe you are reading this from your phone at midnight, the appointment already on your calendar, wondering what you have actually agreed to. Not knowing what happens in that first hour is one of the quiet reasons people put off starting therapy for years. Here is what usually happens, so the not knowing is not one more thing standing in your way.
A first therapy session is mostly a conversation, not an exam. It generally runs 50 minutes and follows a loose shape: your therapist introduces themselves and explains confidentiality, meaning what you share stays between the two of you, protected under Ontario's Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA), with a few legal limits your therapist will name clearly. From there, most of the time is spent on what brought you in.
This first meeting is sometimes called an intake, the appointment where your therapist gathers the background they need to work with you well. Expect questions about what has been going on lately, a bit of your history, who is in your corner, and what you are hoping will be different. You do not need to have it all organized. Therapists are trained to help the conversation find its shape.
No, and this is worth being precise about. Many Saalvio clients start with a Free 30-Minute Consultation before ever booking a full session. The consultation is a shorter, no-cost conversation where you meet a registered clinician, share a little about what brought you here, and decide together whether it feels like a fit. It is not a full therapy session, and it is not a discount or a trial. Full assessment and treatment planning happen once therapy itself begins, in the 50-minute session this article describes.
If you already know you want to start, you can book a full session directly without a consultation first. Either way, nobody arrives at their first real session as a total stranger to the process.
There is no required script, but a few threads tend to come up naturally. It can help to think through these before you go, even just in your head on the drive over or in the ten minutes before you log on:
You are allowed to say "I am not sure where to start." That sentence, on its own, tells your therapist plenty.
Expect questions about your current situation, your history with mental health, your support system, and any medications you take. None of it is a pop quiz. If a question feels too personal to answer yet, you can say so and come back to it later.
If you would rather ask some of these before you ever book, that is exactly what messaging a therapist first is for. There is no cost and no commitment, and it is one of the few places in Canadian mental health care where you get to ask before you pay.
An intake (the structured conversation where your therapist gathers your background and current concerns) is not a diagnosis, and it is not a one-time event. It usually continues across your first couple of sessions as your therapist builds a fuller picture. Your role in it is simple: answer what you can, skip what you are not ready for, and correct anything that gets misunderstood along the way.
A full therapy session at Saalvio runs 50 minutes. Session fees are listed on our pricing page, and sessions with a Registered Psychotherapist or Registered Social Worker are typically reimbursable under most extended health benefit plans. Saalvio does not bill insurers directly. You pay at the time of the session and receive a detailed receipt to submit yourself, and the full breakdown is on our insurance page.
Plans change, and life happens before a first session too. If you need to cancel or reschedule, give at least 24 hours' notice and there is no charge. Inside that window, the session is billed at the agreed rate. And if you ever want a copy of your session notes, you can ask your therapist for one at any time.
Yes. Some people sit down and talk for fifty straight minutes without a pause. Others go quiet three sentences in and need a moment before they can keep going. Both are normal first sessions. Your therapist has sat across from both kinds of people many times, and neither reaction changes how the hour goes. If you cry, nobody is going to rush you past it.
Near the end, your therapist will usually recap what came up and talk through what the next few sessions might look like. You do not have to decide anything on the spot. If the fit does not feel right after a session or two, you can say so, and Saalvio's clinical team will help you find someone better suited to what you need. That is not a failure on your part. Fit matters more than almost anything else in whether therapy helps.
Between sessions, you can keep the thread going with your therapist through secure messaging, for brief follow-up questions or scheduling, not for ongoing therapy by text. If you want more on how that works, see how to find a therapist in Canada and what is a Registered Psychotherapist, or check any therapist's standing yourself on the CRPO's public register before you book.
Deciding between video and in-person is a separate question worth its own read: is online therapy as effective as in-person therapy?
You can message any therapist on our team with your questions first, book a free 30-minute consultation, or go straight to booking your first full session. All three are on the same page.
In your first therapy session, your therapist explains confidentiality, asks what brought you in, and begins learning your history, current situation, and goals. The session usually runs 50 minutes and continues into an intake process across your first couple of appointments.
A full first therapy session at Saalvio runs 50 minutes, the same length as ongoing sessions. The Free 30-Minute Consultation some clients book beforehand is shorter and is not a full therapy session.
No preparation is required. It can help to jot down what has been on your mind, your goals for therapy, and any questions for your therapist, but you can also arrive with nothing written down at all.
That is common, and it is not a failure on your part. Tell Saalvio's clinical team and they will help match you with a different therapist at no cost. Fit is one of the strongest predictors of whether therapy helps.
Yes. What you share is protected as personal health information under Ontario's PHIPA, with a few legal limits your therapist will explain at the start, such as risk of serious harm.
Yes. You can message any therapist on Saalvio's team with your questions before booking anything, or book a free 30-minute consultation to meet them first. Both are free and carry no commitment.
Your first 30 minutes at Saalvio is a free consultation, with no card on file and no obligation to continue. If you are not sure where to start, our clinical team can help you figure out the right next step.
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