Tips to transition to a new therapist

Post date: 2021-01-26 16:50:34

I've been in therapy for about 3 years. The therapist I've had for most of that time had to abruptly take a leave due to a very serious family medical issue, so I'm being paired with someone else at the practice, for an indeterminate period of time (it could be a few months to forever). How do I best go about this? I've had a very eventful last few years that I'm still dealing with the fall-out from. How much of that do I need to cover, vs how much will be in the notes?

I'm hoping that someone here will have a little insight into what kind of information the new therapist will be starting with in my patient file, other than the overall diagnoses. Do I really have to start from the beginning and do a recap of what brought me in in the first place, current strengths and weaknesses, etc? Or, is it best to just start with where I am now, current issues I'm having, and then give backstory as needed? I've Googled around, but most of the advice is how to leave your current therapist and find a new one, which is not the case here.

I'm pretty bummed about this development. This same issue happened before about 1.5 years ago, and while it was good to get a different perspective, the transition was rough. I'm trying to make it better this time around, so any advice as a practitioner or a client is great. Thanks!

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