I was using the definition from the books. They all keep using phrases such as empathic responses or the therapist expressing empathy leads to x in the client etc. and then give examples.
IT is not the only part of therapeutic communication I find aversive or baffling - I find most of it that way whether they are attempting empathy or not. This is just one aspect of it. And I was struck how all the books characterize it (my type of reaction to it) as not the usual response that clients have (which I would have thought was not all that unusual)- so I thought I would see how others here experience it.

I feel empathy but had to learn how to express it to others - when I do express it I do not understand how what I am saying in the way I have learned to say it is useful - I do see how it is by how others react - but it is foreign to me in the sense of why it works. It is like the opposite of what would help me. I simply had to accept that if I said to others what would make me feel better, it did not help them and so I simply caved and now talk in a way like what sounds to me as completely idiotic - but I do recognize it works with interacting with others. When others do it back to me - I try to remember they are trying - but it can irritate the snot out of me and often controlling my frustration and irritation at people (friends I mean - I do not always bother trying to control it with the therapist) who are sincerely trying to be there for me is simply not worth telling them anything.