With a snide remark, LOL. Yesterday I sit down and he goes, "Do you mind if I run upstairs to just grab a box of tissues?" When he returned I said, "What, do you plan on crying or something?"

A lot of the sessions start with him saying, "What's been going on?" And I always come back with the information-rich answer of "nothing."

Do you record your dreams? I don't know if you and your therapist to dream work but that's always a good way to start off a session; talking about a dream you had.

Other cool things to do are: go through some psych books (I usually go through McWilliams or Yalom) and find a passage or a particular line that really pertains to you or to the current status of your therapeutic relationship. Bring that in, read it to your T, and talk about what it means to you. You can even do the same with song lyrics, a poem, etc. Stepping outside of the box to find different outlets of expression can be very helpful, particularly in getting a session started. One time T and I started off a session by him asking me what I would do if he and I were in the painting that was hanging on the wall (it's a painting of a picnic scene), and he walked away from me. Then he asked what I would do if he came back. And we went from there.

Sometimes my T starts by saying, "What shouldn't we talk about today?"