I agree with the above. Part of the reason why therapy was not truly therapy-like with my second T was that the sessions were a lot like normal conversations, I would say >80% of the time. I certainly enjoyed them as the T was a very good conversation partner, but so are many other people in my life, and paying for that and calling it therapy?! That T managed it much better in email interactions. But even in normal conversations, some people are just more generous with information than others. For example, I tend to be on the minimalistic/frugal side with personal info when I talk with colleagues, clients, in most work-related interactions. My thinking is that a lot of that info is usually just not relevant there and it can easily divert the talk and turn it less productive when there are time constraints. I think it can be a form of art to find a good balance in this, not to appear too standoffish but keep the focus. As for therapists, what I know is that many do not answer questions because they want to use it to explore why the client is interested in that piece of info instead. For me personally, that can turn quite annoying if excessive but it can also be interesting, why do I want to know and why am I preoccupied with it, even with the fact that they are not so generous? I've learned interesting things about myself and good ways to draw people out that way, not so much in therapy but when interacting with people in everyday life (especially one who was my romantic partner for a while) that tend to be quite minimalistic (often also avoidant at least somewhat). One thing I've found is that people who tend to give one-liners as answers are often more than willing to reveal more but they do need follow-up questions and the other person to engage them more because they rarely do that by themselves. I've also learned that I am actually good at the engaging and it can be mutually quite stimulating, even just for the sake of figuring out how to do it effectively with a specific person. Of course therapists can remain quite resistant to this as they regulate their style on purpose, but I still think one can learn from these situations about own communication strengths and weaknesses.