Just wondering how many of you out there make good eye contact with T?

Wow, I was going to post a thread about this myself!

It depends on who is out. I'm hit or miss on it, but can do it if I'm feeling pretty good. Some of the little parts can't do it at all. Then we have one part that has recently become much more comfortable with T and he actually likes and needs the eye contact. From what I've been told on the inside, he has been making quite a bit of eye contact with T.

Is it necessarily a bad thing if you don't make good eye contact? I just googled it and found that some animals find eye contact very threatening. I can see why.

Does anyone's T's call attention to it if you aren't making eye contact?

I have trouble making eye contact with T whenever I am talking about something that means anything. If it is a discussion, say, on my college major...no problem. The whole transference discussion, I'm not sure I even saw him. I sometimes force myself to look at him while he's talking to be polite. But I have real trouble looking while I'm talking. I have pointed out myself and we have discussed it, but T has never initiated a discussion on eye contact. Sometimes he will say things like, "Are you anxious right now?" or "Did you go somewhere? Are you still with me?" I assume this is because he is watching me and can tell the difference between me being uncomfortable with eye contact and actually going inside my head about something we are discussing and not being fully there. Usually, I end sketching...if I force myself not to sketch, I'm staring at the trash (no idea why), the door (worrying about running out of time or wanting to run away?) or the glass coffee table (which I sometimes feel like smashing).

STRM and Yaku,

So glad it's not just me. Not sure how much time I actually spend looking at T versus looking around his office.

Yaku, did you get to your appointment tonight?

Yes, 9:00 pm, so still more than four hours to go...

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Originally posted by springreen:
STRM - I'm sorry if this is personal, but what do you mean when you say "little parts"? do you mean you have dissociate personality disorder and your other personalities are younger than you?

Springreen,

Yes. I have DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder and also severe PTSD. I have adult and child personalities.

Liese... I do make a lot of eye contact with my T and he is a stickler for it. If I look away he asks me where I'm going or he tell me to come back to him. He wants me to look at him so that I can see his reactions to what I am telling him. And he wants me to look at him while he says good things about me because I have a really hard time taking that stuff in. In therapy the non-verbals are hugely important, especially in the kind of right brain therapy that makes such a difference with attachment. He knows this. How can you take in the non-verbals if you are not looking at the T? One needs to see AND hear. It helps with the connection and the attunement.

I don't feel threatened by him and that is not why the eye contact wanders. I think for most of us with trauma and abuse histories we look away out of shame.

Just my thoughts and how my T works.

TN

My T never pushes for eye contact. She will try to find my eyes with her eyes if I'm getting too far away, but she will not and does not insist on eye contact. I would be totally freaked if she did.

Staring into T's blue eyes is my favorite!! Lol, but if T catches me staring out the window sometimes (which is easy to do with such an amazing view) or at the wall he asks me where I am.

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Part of the problem I think is that I fear what I will see in his eyes. If he has a neutral expression on his face I interpret it as coldness/disinterest and immediately withdraw. Sometimes though, he has an expression of great compassion and caring and I have to withdraw from that also.Confused On the odd occasion that I loosen up and talk animatedly and enthusiastically about something, he has an expression of enjoyment and a sort of affection. That makes me withdraw too. Sigh.

Yes! Exactly. It's a no win situation. My ideal place to have a deep, heartfelt conversation with anyone? Driving in a car together (me as passenger). They have to focus on the road. We are on a journey together. I am close without feeling either of us has invaded the other's space. Close enough to be reassured, but separate enough to feel safe about that closeness. Even if we are parked and they can look over at me, I don't feel obligated to look at them, because being side-by-side, it is natural to look forward and awkward to turn your head for a whole conversation. I actually shared a journal entry about this with T (in sharing why I hated his office), but I made sure to note I wasn't asking to go on a drive (he probably thinks I want to kidnap him, LOL)...just describing what feels safest to me.

I do phone therapy with T1, so no eye contact. in high school when I went to her for two years we didn't have a lot of eye contact. I think things would be different now.

With T2 I think I have pretty good eye contact. The only time that I look away is when I am telling a story about SA or something difficult to talk about. In those instances I look out the window while I talk.

Liese, I don't have the same problem as I can't make eye contact over the webcam anyway, but I found I couldn't look at the screen oftentimes. Lately I can't look at the screen and see my T's face while he is talking to my h, I just stare off to the side somewhere, and gradually I take a quick peek at him from time to time, which is ridiculous since T can't see what I'm doing anyway when the camera is not on me. h can though. I am well-hidden, at least from T now! I'll betcha all he could see of me today was my arm. Inching slowly out of view...rather than not making eye contact. Same premise I guess.

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My favourite place to talk though is in the dark. Everything is accessable in the dark.

I love having my sessions at 9pm for this reason. His office is obviously not dark, but something about arriving in the dark and leaving in the dark makes me feel safer. I wish he would just come closer to me, make me feel like I have an anchor to grab onto when I am drifting away.

I make so little eye contact I am not certain I would recognize either of them out of their offices