Okay. This is super interesting. I can’t imagine not talking about family. Even if they are putatively not the reason you sought therapy.

I mean… your family? The people who raised you? Your first experiences of attachment? That is the template for who you are, how you relate to and experience the world and everyone you encounter in it, every subsequent relationship and endeavour. How your parents or earliest caregivers cared for you sets the stage for how you feel about yourself, care for yourself and others, endure pain and hardship, your ability to function appropriately with friends, partners, colleagues, bosses, kids etc.

How can you change any of those things if you don’t understand them? This is not about blame. (Or it doesn’t have to be unless that’s what you need right now.) Parents generally do their very best in circumstances where they only have so much control, limited skills and resources and where there are many external factors. It’s about making sense of your world.

Your discomfort in talking about your family is your clue that that’s what you need to be talking about (ie both the discomfort and the family!)