Perhaps the only rule is that you must establish contact and trust in him. If something seems strange to you, don't hesitate to ask your therapist. As I wrote in one of the previous posts, therapy is not a magic pill, but the client’s work towards knowledge and self-improvement. You can ask a psychologist what approach he uses and what methods he uses. The fact is that there are short-term methods aimed at relieving symptoms, or diagnostic ones, for example, art therapy allows you to outline preliminary topics for internal work, and this happens through creating images, sculpting or drawing. They may have a short-term effect. And here you decide what you want from therapy - in-depth study or relief of the current condition. There are long-term methods of work, this is what is called “psychotherapy”. The process is similar to sorting out the contents in a closet - first you need to open it, take out all the things, throw away the unnecessary, wipe the dust from the shelves and put clean and necessary things in their places. I work in a long-term approach, it can last from six months to a year or more, of course, this process is not always easy and pleasant. Some clients return after such work and feel that they unloaded the “wagons” during the session, this is normal, this is how it should be. Honestly, no one has ever gone to a psychologist just to share joy and happiness. Resistance, fear of changing something, and expectations that may not be met are triggered here; this is all material for working in the session and questions that you can ask your therapist. Sometimes it happens that the therapist does not work with some issues, and then he may refer you to another specialist. This will not be a refusal to work for the client, but a demonstration of competence in the work of a psychologist. There are questions on the edge of clinical psychology or even psychiatry that an inexperienced psychologist may not be able to discern. Or - what's worse - notice, but overestimate your capabilities. This is simply dangerous for the client. It is important to ask questions about competence at or before the dating stage when formulating your request.