Nervous About Your First Couples Therapy Session? Here’s What Happens
Walking into your first couples therapy session can feel daunting. You might be wondering what to expect, whether you’ll be put on the spot, or if your partner will finally hear what you’ve been trying to say. Perhaps you’re both hopeful, or maybe one of you is more hesitant than the other. Whatever you’re feeling right now, it’s okay.
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What Happens in the First Couples Therapy Session?
The first couples therapy session is a supportive, structured 80-minute session designed to establish a shared understanding of what is happening in your relationship. It forms part of an assessment process in which I’m learning about your relationship dynamics and what brought you here now.
The first session happens after I’ve held an initial consultation with each partner separately. These brief conversations are held in advance to ensure that what I offer is a good fit for each of you. I specialise in helping couples repair trust after an affair or betrayal, overcome recurring conflict cycles, understand intense emotions such as anger or jealousy, and rebuild emotional intimacy. From the first contact, I’ll strive to understand what’s happening between you and your vision for your relationship.
As an integrative therapist, I tailor therapy sessions to each client and couple, and the assessment helps me do this effectively. Understanding your unique issues and challenges is an essential part of our work together. I work from Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) and psychodynamic perspectives, which means I’m interested not only in what's happening between you but also in the deeper emotional patterns and histories that shape how you connect.
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A step-by-step guide to your first couples therapy session
Here’s an overview of a typical first 80-minute couples session, outlined to give you a sense of what might happen in your first session. During our work together, you’ll have opportunities to ask questions about our process.
Step 1: Starting the Session
Essentials for Clarity and Safety
To begin, I’ll establish the practical foundations that make therapy work: confidentiality, boundaries, payment terms, and how we’ll work together. Before the session, you would have received a couples therapy agreement to review, and we’ll discuss it at the start of the session. You also would have received and returned a couples therapy questionnaire with questions about you and your relationship. Discussing these details creates the safety and clarity you need to do vulnerable work. You’ll know how the space is held, what to expect from me, and what I’ll need from you.
Step 2: Exploring Your Relationship
How Are You Feeling?
Before we go deeper, I’ll check in briefly with each of you about how you’re feeling about starting therapy today. This is a way for me to sense where each of you is emotionally as we begin.
Sometimes, one partner is more motivated or more comfortable speaking, while the other might be more cautious or guarded. I’m paying attention to this dynamic from the very start. It helps me understand how to pace the session, who may need more encouragement to open up, and who may need a gentle slowing down.
Each Partner Gets Space to Speak
The heart of the first session involves spending focused time with each of you while your partner listens without commenting. This structure can feel unfamiliar, but it’s intentional.
I’ll explain that the person listening should do just that: listen. And when it’s their turn, they should speak from their own perspective rather than responding to what their partner just said. I often encourage you to speak in terms of ‘I’ rather than ‘we’. ‘We’ can blur the lines of individual experience. ‘I’ helps us slow down and understand each person's inner world more clearly.
During this time, I might ask questions like:
From your perspective, what do you see as the main issue in your relationship? This isn't about getting the ‘right’ answer. It's about understanding how each of you experiences the relationship and where you feel stuck.
How motivated are you to participate in this work? I want to get a sense of how willing each of you is to engage with the discomfort that growth requires.
What would a successful outcome look like for you? I'm curious about your hopes, not just your frustrations. What are you longing for? What would feel different if therapy helped?
These questions focus on self-awareness and understanding how each of you engages in your relational patterns and dynamics. Throughout the session, I will actively listen to assess your relationship and to understand your goals for couples therapy. This information will help me tailor your therapy to meet your needs.
Step 3: Slowing Down To Close
Booking Your Individual Sessions
Over the course of our work together, I’ll meet with each of you individually at least once. Individual sessions are a crucial part of effective couples therapy. They provide each person space to explore their own experience. These might be discussed in your first session.
Your Takeaways
Toward the end of the session, we’ll take time to close. I’ll check in with each of you about how you’re feeling as we end the session. I might ask, What’s staying with you from the session? What surprised you? What felt hard?
I might also invite you to share something you’ll take away from the session. Even in conflict or discomfort, there are moments of care, effort, or courage worth acknowledging.
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The First Session Is a Foundation
The first couples therapy session focuses on establishing clarity, safety, and a foundation for meaningful work at a pace that’s right for you. It’s about beginning to understand the patterns you’re struggling with, and exploring whether you’re ready to change them together.
From here, the work deepens. We’ll schedule individual sessions so I can hear each of your stories in more detail. This includes your history, your vulnerabilities, and what you bring to the relationship from your own past. Then we come back together and move into the work of change: slowing down the cycles that keep you stuck, helping you understand each other differently, and building new ways of connecting that feel safer and more authentic.
Is couples therapy right for you?
I’m Francesca, a qualified couples therapist and integrative counsellor with specialist training in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT). My approach is calm, attuned, and structured. I focus on helping couples understand their relationship dynamics to deepen their connection.
I specialise in helping couples struggling with:
Book your consultation
If you’re considering couples therapy and want to know more about how I work, I’m here to answer your questions. Reaching out can be the hardest part. Everything else, we can take one step at a time.
If you are ready to begin, book your couples therapy consultation.
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