The first ten minutes of a first virtual session have to do the work the building used to do. In an office, the address, the door, the waiting area and the fact that the client physically arrived established most of what you now have to establish in words.

Five things, and they take less time than they sound like:

Where they physically are, and whether they're safe there. A phone number that reaches them, and the agreement that you'll use it if the video drops. Who else is in the space, or could walk in. How you'll communicate between sessions, and what that channel is and isn't for. What they should do if something goes wrong — technically, or clinically, at three in the morning.

Then the therapy. But not before, because every one of those is much harder to establish once you need it.

What should I send before the session?

Short, concrete, and in the same place they'll look on the day.

• The link, and where to find it again. In the confirmation and in the reminder, not only in an email from three weeks ago.

• When to arrive. "A couple of minutes early" is enough.

• What they'll see. A waiting page, then you. A client who expects the waiting page doesn't conclude the link is broken.

• What they need. A private room with a door, a charged device, headphones or earbuds, and something to write with if you use worksheets.

• What happens if it fails. "If you can't get in, I'll call you on the number you gave me." This is the most useful sentence in the email.

Ask them to open the link once before the day. Two minutes on a Tuesday surfaces the problems that would otherwise surface at the start of the first hour, when the client is already nervous.

What do I need to establish in the session itself?

Their location, specifically. Not the city on their intake form — where they are right now. You need it for the safety plan, and it changes when clients travel, move, or take a session from a car park at work.

A working phone number. Confirmed out loud, not read from a form. Everything else depends on this, because when the platform fails, the phone is the entire safety net.

The privacy of their space. Ask directly: can anyone hear you, could anyone walk in, is the device you're on shared with anyone. For a client in an unsafe relationship this is not a formality, and it may change how you communicate entirely.

How you'll be in touch between sessions. What channel, what it's for, how quickly you reply, and what to do instead in a crisis. Setting this in session one prevents most of the boundary problems that otherwise arrive in month four.

The plan for a drop. Say it in one sentence and then, ideally, never need it.

What's different about consent for virtual work?

Your usual consent, plus the parts specific to doing it through a screen — which vary by profession and province, and are worth confirming with your own College rather than from a template someone posted.

The items practitioners commonly include: that sessions are conducted by video, which platform and what that means for where information is held, that sessions aren't recorded (or, if they are, what that involves), how electronic communication between sessions is handled, and the limits of virtual care including what happens in an emergency.

Written, signed, and revisited if any of it changes.

How do I make the first session feel like a session?

Small things, and they matter more on video than in a room.

Be there first. A client who arrives to a waiting page and waits four minutes has started the relationship waiting.

Sort out your own frame. Light on your face, not behind you. Camera at eye level. A background that isn't your bedroom. Your setup is the closest thing to a consulting room the client will get.

Name the medium once, briefly. "It's a bit strange at first, and it stops being strange." Then stop talking about the technology.

Do the endings deliberately. The hour just ends, with no walk out and no door. Leave more time than you would in person, and ask what they're doing next — the client whose next event is a work call in three minutes has a problem you can only find by asking.

What about clients who've never done this before?

More common than it looks, particularly with older clients and people who have avoided therapy for years.

The main thing is not to make it a test. A client fumbling with a camera in their first minute is a client already on the back foot. If it isn't working after a couple of minutes, move to the phone and treat the session as normal — you can sort the technology out afterwards, together, when nothing is riding on it.

Some clients need three or four sessions before the medium stops taking up attention. That's normal, and it isn't a sign the format is wrong for them.

The short version

Do the container first: where they are, how to reach them, who's around, how you'll communicate, and what to do when it fails. Send the practical information in advance and ask them to open the link once. Then run the session you'd have run anyway — and leave more time at the end than feels necessary.

About Rivet

Rivet is a Canadian practice line built for therapists — a separate number for calls, texts and voicemail, with video sessions and clinical tools in the same place. Your data stays in Canada, and transcription runs on Rivet's own hardware rather than a third-party AI service.

One plan, $65 CAD a month, everything included. Fourteen-day trial, no card.

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