It never was possible for me. Perhaps, like comrademoomoo said, it depends on the character of the client as well as the therapist and I lacked a "receptor" for it. Problem is, though, therapy did not help with that, even after more than 50 years of trying on and off and probably over 2 dozen therapists. And nobody ever said -- sorry, you've got a bad character and we can't help you with that.

Well, yep, I kind of felt I had a bad character, managed it as well as I could, definitely wanted to change and do and be better. But, nope, I just got worse, digging around in all that unresolved trauma, "expressing" myself and not really understanding the effect it might have on others. The last therapist, a trauma specialist, ascribed to the "reparative relationship" model that was popular when I started with her 11 years ago. It didn't work. I saw her for 6 years until she terminated me saying she didn't "have the emotional resources" to continue.

Well, maybe she "cared" but, as it turned out, that didn't do any good for me.