From what I've seen (which isn't much in this arena, lol) they sort of look behind the words, not at the words. Like for example when you said "don't start with me" and got all teary in response to her compliments, the first thing they think is "ohh she is triggered". And then they ask questions to find out information about this emotional trigger. Eg say if they told you they thought you were authentic and you triggered, they would ask questions along the lines of "why don't you believe you are authentic?" and they press you on the details until in the end you come out with some deep seated fear that has caused you to react this way. This is what she does in my sessions anyways, from what i can tell!

Like one time I was triggered and we were talking and I told her (fury POURING out of me, lol) that feelings are like Cancer - they are unneccessary, unacceptable and need to be chopped off as soon as they are noticed if you want to live life for a long duration. If you listened to the words you would think "This person has a bad attitude towards feelings and thus therapy and will not benefit from seeing me". But instead she looked behind the words and asked me things such as "what similarities do feelings and cancer have?" and sort of homed in on the details, so she could get an idea of my fears (I think).