[/I]I guess I was saying I think it's the emotion felt/appeared at that moment. If you intellectually realize later that there was another hidden emotion behind it, then the hidden one could become authentic if you start to feel the hidden one. Does that make sense? [I]I wonder if there are 'superficial' emotions and emotions that are more authentic. That a certain emotion could be 'learned' response but others come out of nowhere to ambush you. So, I guess the authentic one is the one that cannot be controlled easily.

Also, irrelevant to defining authenticity, I didn't mean to suggest you should restrain yourself when emotions feel too strong, I meant to find a way to express them and still be respectful of the other person. I don't really think you should worry too much about being respectful of your therapist because the whole point of therapy is that it's okay to make mistakes and your difficulty seems like it's a lot more about expressing your emotions at all than about being disrespectful by over-expressing them. (me too.) Fear of losing control if I allowed myself to open up completely and that is just way way too self-indulgent along with totally embarrasing

I just meant I don't think you were wrong for also later going back and questioning whether you were sarcastic to your t. I think it would be good to talk to her about that too. (I have no clue whether you were actually sarcastic to her or not. I guess if you were it was probably really subtle and she wouldn't be upset about it. I didn't bring up an apology today in session because i didn't want to go there in our discussions. She would have probably wanted to explore it more and today had to be a more intellectual session. It was good - I got some new info, but it felt empty

But whatever the case was, I think we can learn from t's how to more frequently express strong emotions respectfully. I think Sunrise has a post on this thread where she gave some example of doing that.) Anyway, even if I'm making sense, and t's can teach us how to express more strong emotions more respectfully and consideratley, I'm not sure it's ALWAYS possible to get that right. Maybe learning how to do it more often is the best one can do. What do you think? You've got a point When I've felt strongly in my life, I'll slam doors,throw things and pout instead of expressing them in a more healthy way
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I don't think people should always show all their emotions. That might be authentic, but I think being authentic ALL the time probably isn't a good idea. But for people like me and you, I think expressing them a lot more could be good. My t says I don't express emotions much.Yeah, I've discovered that I've missed out on positive emotions during my life too. I would be intellectually happy but not feel it as much as I noticed people around me seeming to feel it. (Can a person be 'intellectually' happy?) Maybe my post before sounded like I thought being authentic is always the way to go, but I didn't mean to sound like that.