What does your at do when you cry?

I am not a big crier. But when i do, she will give me hugs or hold my hand, she might say she is sorry, she might say its ok to cry, but mostly she just holds me and lets me cry.

I think this is so interesting because I read a lot into my T's response to me crying. It's never really the same reaction. Generally, he just sits there and listens. I usually have to get up and grab tissues for myself. In the beginning, he seemed more sympathetic; gesturing towards the tissues or saying, "there are tissues on the table" etc, but I'm a cryer (for better or worse) and I think he has become desensitized to me. Once, very recently, when I cried about something he also went through / had experience going through, he actually got up from his chair and walked over and handed me the tissue box...I think that's the greatest display of compassion and love I've ever gotten from him...wish it would happen again haha.

Nothing we continue with session...or he targets in on the problem. Then depending on my mood I ignore him or we talk about it. If ignore him I'll just look out the big glass doors or ignore him by interacting with my service dog and it will stay super quiet for a long time. He only intervines if it's wrap up time and I'm a mess, cause he knows I'll continue to spiral out of control and he wants me to be grounded before I leave.

I've never cried with T but she knows that I don't like to cry in front of other people. If I were to cry in front of her, I'm sure I would try to hold it back and she would tell me it's okay and let me cry as much as I needed. Maybe it will happen someday...

I always used to hold it back, with her and others. I could bite the inside of my lip or distract with other thoughts, but now nothing holds the tears back. I cry in front of others, now, too, and it can be embarrassing at times. I never know what will trigger me. T says it's because I'm so overwhelmed with my life and stress. I cried at pdoc last week and he at least told me there were tissues on the table next to me. I think I'm so used to not having tissues offered or near, my first response was to say, "No, I'm fine." But then I did take one and was grateful for his caring.

Nothing.....It's weird.

I was shamed a lot for crying as a child, so it took me a long time to be able to cry in therapy. I don't cry every session, but the times that I have, he will just sit and listen if I can still talk. The tissues are always on the side table next to my big comfy chair. There was one time when I just lost control and started sobbing (i'm sure it was a truly ugly cry). I balled myself up in the chair and hid my face in the arm of the chair. He gave me a minute or two and then softly asked me to please look at him. At first I said I couldn't. He said he just wanted me to see that he wasn't angry or upset with me for crying, so I did. It was a very healing moment in my therapy. From that point on, I haven't felt the need to bite my lip or hold back my tears if I need to cry.

sometimes he asks what my tears are about if it isnt obvious... if i am talking and crying its pretty obvious i am crying about what im talking about so he doesnt mention it. when i would dissociate or have a flashback in session he would say my name and keep talking so i knew where i was, that i was with him. he would tell me where i was and who he was and what we were doing

My last two years in therapy has been marked by the amount I have cried. In twenty years of therapy I hardly ever cried, but I have finally found a therapist I feel safe enough with and trust with the most vulnerable aspects of myself. I have cried and sobbed and done the 'ugly crying' (nose streaming and everything!) I used to always hide under my coat when I started crying, I felt so ashamed and ugly. I went to a session one day and there was a throw draped over the back of my chair which I then always covered myself with when getting upset. I spent months under that throw crying...

My therapist stays with me in my pain, rarely asks me to explain it and now, after two years, I can cry without hiding under the throw, though I often still turn my face away. More often now I steal glances at my therapist and occasionally I see tears in his eyes, which really touches me, as I feel in that moment that he deeply empathises with my distress. From the way he is with me I feel he has experienced his own personal despair and distress and come out the other side. His is not scared, uncomfortable or overwhelmed by my tears. By staying right with me in this way, without trying to get me to do or say anything, I feel his hope for me that I too will find my own way out of my pain and distress.

He always has tissues on a coffee table between us, and sometimes when I've been hiding and couldn't even reach out for them he will gently move them next to me. He doesn't usually say anything if I'm sobbing, sometimes he just says soothing words about the tears being for me, because I matter. It has helped me to stay with these feelings by him not speaking. In one session I felt so ashamed of my distress that he asked if I would like him to leave the room for a moment while I put myself back together. This has only happened once and was only because I was too frozen to get up and leave the room (as I have done sometimes when I'm really upset). He came back in after a couple minutes.

I have person-centred therapy which differs from psychodynamic or CBT quite a lot in it's philosophy and approach. My therapist has specifically trained to offer genuine empathy, acceptance and warmth as part of his way of being rather than as a skill.

I am wondering what types of therapy/therapist other people are experiencing?

Phx

That is beautiful, I am glad your therapist can be there for you like this... I have sometimes wanted my therapist to hold me but this has never happened.

Phx.

That sounds like a really healing moment ... I was shamed for crying as a child also (or distracted or ignored) and can relate to what you say about forcing the tears back. I still do this in my life but rarely ever with my therapist now, which is such a blessed relief. I have spent a long time now going to therapy to have a good cry.