I kind of agree with SkyscraperMeow. My sense is that maybe he does get you but it all feels very frustrating and thwarting to you because he's not doing it how you think it should be done. It seems normal for people to spend most of their time trying to change their Ts and how their T's operate instead of allowing their T's to help them change. A lot of posters write about going through it.
You said he wants you to talk about your real life. You said it's a boring life. Like it's so boring, there's nothing to talk about. Then you said,
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when I think he should be paying attention to what's going on, which is, when I'm coping badly or having negative symptoms - I'm not coming in and talking about them, but more than that, I genuinely don't understand whether I can and should.
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That is your real life, the stuff he wants to talk about, and you're not coming in and talking about it and unless he's a complete dunderhead he knows your not coping. It shows on most of us. If you're coping badly and having negative symptoms out there in the other 6 days and 23 hours a week, that's the real life he wants you to talk about. Talking about your therapeutic relationship is taking the focus off learning how to cope better out there in your real life outside of session.
I think. Pretty sure. That's how I'd interpret it. Maybe you're more like sd and want a T who will do it your way. Which is your right. But first you have to find a T willing to do that. Your current T doesn't sound like that guy.
I didn't think my fave T understood me for a long time. He kept saying these really strange things that didn't apply to me, like saying he thought I was angry. I denied it in a gentle voice as sparks flew from my eye sockets. Turns out he saw me with X-ray vision and I didn't like what he was seeing. He seemed to like it just fine and accept it as fairly normal under the circumstances and he worked on helping me unconditionally accept myself and change what I could and accept what I couldn't. It took time for me to let my defenses down. I started out as an exceptionally well-defended person, cloaked in poise and good manners. Gak.
We never talked about our relationship. I didn't have to ask him about his expectations because he told me and said it was all right to disappoint his expectations. A lot of what he said seemed paradoxical and way out there in left field at first. After a while I figured out he knew what he was doing and Captain SnakeCharmer stopped trying to command Starship Recovery. I settled for being Navigator, deciding where we'd go and how long it would take to get there. It worked out fine.