being able to maintain eye contact is just something that is important in our society. ive found that not forcing a client to make eye contact makes things run a lot more smoothly...after ive earned their trust, eye contact starts to become more frequent. engaging in activities that dont require eye contact can help the client feel more comfortable about not maintaining it. this is especially helpful with adolescent and child clients.

i remember a time when i was doing a session with a 16 year old girl and we started late afternoon and as the sun set it got dark in the room. the only light we had was the glow from the computer. i asked if she wanted to turn on the light and she said no...she talked more than she had the entire 5 weeks i'd been seeing her! and about real things, nothing she had been willing to speak about before. since i was sitting by the computer, she could pretty much see my eyes, but i couldnt see hers and i think not being seen and not having to maintain eye contact made her feel safer in talking about what was on her mind. that was the only time we did a session in the dark and the only time she was really open and i didnt have to drag things out of her.

i say all that to say, that eye contact is socially important but i find that the reasons for the lack of eye contact are far more important than forcing a client to look me in the eye.