The 15-Minute Therapy Consultation Call
The consultation call is the first clinical moment, and most therapists wing it.
You are assessing fit, building rapport, managing your own anxiety about whether this will be a good client, covering logistics, and trying to give the caller enough to feel safe scheduling — all in fifteen minutes. At the same time, the caller is also assessing you. They may be calling three other therapists the same afternoon. They may be in distress. They may ask questions you are not sure how to answer. The call can easily become either a sales pitch or an intake, and neither is what it should be.
A well-run consultation call screens for fit, creates safety without overpromising, gives the caller a sense of how you work, and helps you make a confident decision about whether to move forward. It can also be the difference between a caller who schedules and one who disappears.
This toolkit gives you a structure for the full call from opening to close, including how to handle common questions, what to say if you are not the right fit, how to manage callers who want more than a consultation, and how to end in a way that makes the next step clear.
Inside you will find a call framework with timing, therapist scripts for every phase of the call, language for common difficult moments, a fit checklist, scripts for declining or referring after the call, and a tracker template for your consultation calls.