do you have trouble really opening up to people / letting people in? i'm wondering whether you might be holding him at arms length in an attempt to protect yourself. i do that sometimes. with female therapists in particular. my mother was fairly invasive so i have real difficulty opening up to female therapists.

can you tell him that his being upbeat gets under your skin sometimes?

the thing with connection... is that you need to share something that is intimate. to have him receive that kind of communication well leaves one feeling connected and less alone. if you don't share intimate thoughts / feelings etc then it is really hard to feel connected.

that being said, sometimes we simply don't click very well with particular people. they can be lovely, but the connection isn't really there. i had that with the therapist i was seeing before my current therapist. i'd take what i thought was a risk with disclosing a feeling that was hard and instead of acknowledging it (mirroring it) and sympathising / empathising with my feeling that way she moved on in to restructure / change it. that led to a feeling of disconnection and aloneness rather than a feeling of connection and love.

i tend to run too early... i tried to stick it out with her for a while... for maybe 6 months... i kept thinking of splitting because i felt like the risks i took with her weren't well received and most of our communications were disagreeing rather than our being able to connect rationally (which is important to me). i had just started feeling connected with her and then... got a referral to my current therapist. i didn't go back to see her again.

if i'd have stuck it out i think we would have felt more connected over time. if i'd have explained some of this to her i'm sure i would have felt more connected to her over time. i really wanted... a male therapist, however. female stuff is hard. i am quite rejecting 'cause my mother was so invasive. i think there is a lot of work to be done on those issues... but i worried that she wouldn't be able to take some of my intense transferences, too. i worry about that a little with my current therapist but we do seem to understand each other more. she never ever mentioned transference. i mentioned it a bit laterally / abstractly (as i'm prone to do) and she wasn't able to see that i was implying things about our current relationship (whereas my current therapist will ask questions in the attempt to do precisely that).

so... it might be the case that you would find it easier to connect with another therapist... but it can indeed be really very hard to find someone who is a good personality match. it might be... that there is much to be learned in the current situation. what holds you back from taking risks in sharing stuff with him? could you tell him what you have told us?