Therapy questions for a first session, how I'd approach it

First, I let them get to know me, no questions asked yet. Usually they will start by wanting to know the answers to the below right away.
- Start out with my main reasons for attending therapy.
- Talk about what kinds of therapy I've done in the past and basic experience with it.
- Describe my basic background surrounding my reasons for coming in. In my case this is basics of the trauma, so it gets extra tricky as a first session is not a place to be triggering myself. I try to keep it super, super high level at first, then let the therapist ask more if they want to go deeper. Anyone with experience in trauma (which is why that's a must for me) and even many people without that experience will know how to lead the conversation in a less harmful way.

I observe how they react to this, observe how I feel about their reaction, and let them take it where they want for a bit, they'll usually have follow up questions. But then I try to get some questions in. I won't ask all of these questions, because they will usually have given me answers to some of them while reacting to my introduction. A few go-tos:
- Do you have experience with domestic violence victims? What kind of experience? How long? (This is a big one, as even therapists can be very biased and victim-blaming-- no matter their gender-- and there are a lot of misconceptions out there)
- What's your opinion on exposure therapy and EMDR? (I want them to be cautious and not take either lightly or like a cure-all)
- What's your opinion on psychiatric medication? (I like them to not be too enthusiastic about it, and what they suggest also shows interesting things about how knowledgeable they are on trauma research)
- How familiar are you with somatic psychotherapy, physical therapy, or body work? (Lots of cool new research happening here, and I've had great success with it so far, I love therapists who are also excited by it and educated about the mind-body connection)
- How familiar are you with sex therapy? What are your usual approaches to healing sexual trauma and working with the body?
- How familiar are you with alternative medicine, nutrition, or supplements?
- and more!

After I get a feel for their background and go into discussions on that (I try not to keep that part too long, leaving room for this) I'll explicitly talk about my goals for treatment in more detail and get their feedback on them and ask things like:
- How would you approach achieving those goals?
- How often would you recommend I come in?
- What's your availability and flexibility like?
- How are you feeling about how this session has gone? Do you feel like your specialties & approaches could be a good fit for my treatment needs?