No, I wouldn't say always. It could just be that is how it was for me. I'm especially dysfunctional at expressing anger--some people might be able to do that first. As far as joy goes, I think for a long time it never occurred to me to share positive things with T. (Plus, I wasn't having too many positive things in my life.) But yes, I think sharing pain/sadness/tears did have to precede sharing joy for me. I had to release some of the pressure by beginning to let the negative out, and that made it easier for positive to follow. (You know, when the baby is born, it works best if the head comes out first, and then the rest of the body slips on out more easily.) I also had this image of "therapy" in my mind that wasn't consistent with sharing the positive. I thought of therapy as working through problems, painful happenings both past and present, etc. Not talking about positive things and sharing joy, happiness, etc. I think the very first time I shared anything positive with my T was about a year and a half ago when I told him about a class I was taking. I really liked this class, was learning a lot, was synthesizing knowledge from several fields, and was also transferring part of what I was learning into my personal life. T caught some of my enthusiasm and excitement. At the end of our session he thanked me sharing this with him and said he hoped I would share more "things like that." At the time, I interpreted this to mean he wanted to hear more about my class, but now, looking back, I think he was telling me it was OK to share excitement and enthusiasm with him and positive things from my life.