We actually just recently started with this!

For the last four years or so, I'd mostly have my eyes closed, the only exception is a kind of ritual we have where I usually ask for some eye contact at the very end of a session, which lasts like a second or two.

I don't have this problem outside of therapy either and it bothers me, it sounds like a nice thing to have more often. T has commented on it from time to time and has also tried to get me to look at him at various times, sometimes that worked, other times it didn't go over so well. By now I at least seem to have figured out why I'm struggling with it and what the eye contact triggers.

So, a couple of weeks ago we worked on this for the first time for more than a few seconds. What seems to work so far is that for now, my T doesn't look at me, instead he looks at his shoes or the wall, while I can look at him or look away whenever I feel comfortable. Sometimes he'd still look at me to make sure I'm doing okay, and towards the end of the session we also managed to hold eye contact for a bit longer than usual. Looking at him while he wasn't looking helped, it gave me a nice feeling and let me choose how quickly we move. I will certainly continue with this whenever it's a good time to do so. I think over time I'll get more accustomed to looking at him, so that I can also do that while we're talking about other things, which sounds nice.