Is there anything I need to know about the process of therapy?

The process of therapy takes a lot of courage as it forces you to see your life in a different way, confront some of your fears and question many things you might not have done before.  You might find yourself experiencing intense emotions or dreams or even discover things about yourself that you might not like (Carl Jung called these parts of ourselves our ‘shadow’).  The therapist pays attention to what the client is saying: no judging, no pigeonholing, just listening and trying to understand. Therapy offers a space for you to talk: you can say anything that comes into your mind.
Gradually more personal stuff might be talked about – the experiences of growing up, memories, regrets, hopes and fears. Some feelings can be more difficult to talk about but as trust builds up with an experienced and properly qualified therapist so more feelings, dreams, really personal things can be explored, just made verbal and, most importantly, thought about.
And as this is going on, usually over a period of months, a new relationship is being quietly built up between client and therapist. The therapist might start to recognise patterns, echoes in what the client brings each week; and this is where the mixture of trust and attention begins to pay off.
The therapist uses his or her knowledge to draw attention to those patterns and explore the reasons why the things that make you unhappy seem to keep repeating themselves. Therapy is somewhere where your unhappiness can be challenged. This is not always easy but all therapists have been clients themselves; and have learnt about themselves, too, in this same slow, patient and sometimes difficult way.
The therapeutic space is one where you can address these; your therapist will help you frame them in a way that they make more sense, hence they stop being as frightening or disturbing or strange. Be patient and try not to worry that you might not know what to say or do at times.  With time you will gain deeper understanding and achieve clarity.