This lesson articulates why individual therapy in The Doherty Approach is careful about the check-in and agenda setting. There are two common mistakes we try to avoid. One is a meandering check-in without any clarity that was their actual intention for the use of the therapy session. 

The second mistake is to just follow up on the client’s check in by running with an issue without asking the client to be explicit about whether this is what they want to focus on for this session. Our rationale is that we want to encourage agency and intentionality is clients as they use their therapy sessions. When they have more than on issue/goal, we also ask them which they would like to start with, and in some cases when that goal is taking much of the session, if they want to shift to the second goal or postpone it for another session.