I used to think that my difficulty making eye contact in session was a "problem." Then I had a T who consistenly told me it was okay not to look her in the eye when I was talking about hard things. She told me people have different degrees to which they are comfortable with eye contact, and she said that she wants me to be comfortable talking about hard things, and if it means I can't look her in the eye, it's fine.

This was my old T who had to move away in October so I am seeing a new T now. I still can't make eye contact most of the time but new T doesn't seem to have a problem with it. It is helping me to just accept it rather than beat myself up about it. I actually gradually made more eye contact with my old T as I got more comfortable talking about hard things. It never helped to just force it on myself to look someone in the eye -- only fed the discomfort and made it harder to bring up sensitive topics.