> In session i feel he pays close attention, he listens and acts accepting and nonjudgemental. He asks questions and sometimes mkaes suggestions. Is that caring?

Well, it depends on how you define caring, of course. Sounds like he is being respectful of you, though. Respectful of what you have to say. Respectful of your experience and your thoughts and your feelings. I guess I'd say that that is a caring thing to do, yeah.

> One problem i have is that i do not cry in front of people. i do not outwardly display many emotions.

how come?
do you become aware of an emotion and then swiftly block / supress / mute it?
quickly... quickly before he sees?

> But if you scream inside then you get advice.

advice for the screaming? that sounds weird to me... do you mean that if you manage to prevent their being aware of your emotional state then they interact with you on a more 'rational' level?

> Is "caring" tied to the affect of the client? Is it then caring or sympathy? EMpathy is tied to the situation and information not to the affect... is empathy the same as caring?

Dunno... Words words words... We can define each one and define their inter-relationships and then someone else can come up with a different model and we can argue about who is right...

I think part of it is about feeling cared for.
Feeling cared about.
And I think part of that is about feeling understood and appreciated and listened to on a purely rational level, yup.
But I think that another part to that (an important part) is to experience an emotion and have the experience of your therapist being in a state of emotional attunement to you. So that you feel a bit of the pain and your therapist... Picks up on your experience of pain and feels pain too... That feeling of emotional attunement / connection... That can help us feel a little less alone with our pain.

how would you feel about that?