The Therapy Room Experience

I’ve often imagined, in the past, a place where I could meet my clients — a space that would offer a sense of safety, connection, and would support the harmonious development of our therapeutic relationship.

Today, I’m speaking about that very place where I now meet my clients in person.

Although I continue to work online as well, the experience of in-person sessions is truly unique. Each client brings themselves into the therapy room, and the process — the relationship between us — begins when both of us (consciously or not) ask, “What do you say after ‘Hello’?” (just like in Berne’s book, 1972).

Sometimes, the process begins long before that first meeting. Maybe with the first thought of starting therapy, the first search, or the first visit to a potential therapist’s website, or the phone call in which the session is scheduled. The way these things unfold becomes meaningful in the therapeutic relationship — just as we remember the entire context in which we met our life partner or landed a desired job.

The first contact in the therapy office is more than just meeting the therapist. It is the entire experience of the day the session takes place — the thoughts, fantasies, and expectations (often unspoken and unconscious). It includes the journey to the office, with everything that involves: traffic stress or the joy of listening to your favorite music in the car, the metro crowds or the curiosity of watching the dynamics around you.

At the office, the experience begins at the gate.

Someone from the household will answer the intercom and open it for you. In the courtyard, if it’s summer, a canopy of grapevines casts shade and invites you in. At the far end, to the right, there’s a yellow door that opens with a bit of effort and leads to seven steps down to the basement level of the house — where the therapy room is. Inside, it’s pleasantly cool, no matter how hot it is outside.

The old house, with its abundance of wood, is charming simply through the feeling it creates. At the end of the hallway, a bohemian antechamber — once a painting studio — offers a transition into the therapy space.

Often, the significance of this experience won’t be fully appreciated until several sessions later. The emotions of those first meetings may mean that only once you're seated on the comfortable couch will you truly notice the spacious, light-filled room.

The door closes, offering confidentiality and protection — and from there, how the process unfolds depends on each of us.