[Partless]

I get mad at myself for this, well, after I get mad at T, haha. The thing is that sometimes my T seems to reflect back my own look of apprehension, which to me feels awful, because I want to pass the pain to her for her to neutralize it but it doesn't work if she looks as fearful as I do. Then other times I look apprehensive and instead she has this everything-is-gonna-be-okay smile which half the time calms me but other half the time seems presumptuous and conceited, as if she knows better or my problems are trivial.

Then once I mentioned this to her (a softer and less blaming version of the above) and she said with a smile, Well...how do you want me to react?

Then I got mad at myself. I thought to myself, Well what the hell do I want?

I felt embarrassed though I don't think she meant to embarrass me, she was just asking as a way to bring my attention to what it is that I want but now I find it a kind of weakness in me, as if I'm a child who won't be pacified.

But I don't want to be mad at myself, I want to be compassionate. So I thought I'll ask here, see if anybody can relate...hopefully. Therapy can feel like such a lonely endeavor sometimes, it helps me bring compassion to myself if I can find others share some aspect of how I feel.

Does what I say make any sense?

Yes it makes sense to me, my T has not generally smiled much, and I sometimes wonder if she is reflecting back what she sees in me.

[ruh roh]

It makes sense to me. Sometimes, if I don't like an expression on my therapist's face, I just don't look at her. It doesn't happen often. One time, though, she looked at me like I was a dead puppy on the side of the road, and I just couldn't bear it so I asked her not to do that.

If she were to ask me something like your therapist did, I would reply that I'd like her to just act naturally. Thankfully, she does. There have only been a few times I couldn't look.

I test drove a therapist prior to her who had over the top dramatic expressions. I couldn't bear it. Made my skin crawl. She asked me what was wrong and I said I couldn't look at her. And then I didn't go back.

[Argonautomobile]

Don't be hard on yourself. Some people have awkward faces (I'm one of them!)

I've often thought I could never be a T because of all these contradictory demands that are supposed to govern their presentation--remain neutral but not cold; reflect the patient but keep it professional; express empathy but don't collude; act natural but follow all these other rules!

The result is that sometimes T's get weird faces. Hell, sometimes everybody puts on a weird face.

I wasn't ten minutes into my second session with T when I wanted to punch his face. I looked up (I struggle with eye contact sometimes) and there it was, all dripping with empathy as he said "Wow! That sounds difficult."

And all I could think was, "ARE YOU MOCKING ME, SIR?!"

Take advantage of the opportunity to comment on T's facial expression if it brings something up for you; Therapy is pretty much the only socially acceptable place to comment on it!

[atisketatasket]

I haven't trusted therapists' facial expressions since No. 2 blithely admitted to me, "we reflect your emotions back at you."

So when they look sad, it's because the client is sad, or they think the client is sad, or they think the client should be sad. The last two are where their expressions get to be jarring for me - because I may not be sad, or maybe I'm being poker-faced and I don't want to look at someone's sad face.

[Focus62]

Originally Posted by Argonautomobile

I wasn't ten minutes into my second session with T when I wanted to punch his face. I looked up (I struggle with eye contact sometimes) and there it was, all dripping with empathy as he said "Wow! That sounds difficult."

And all I could think was, "ARE YOU MOCKING ME, SIR?!"

You have a way of writing that really makes me grin, haha. What you've stated here is exactly how I felt with a former T before we got to know each other very well, before I really trusted in her (I really liked her though over time).

[UglyDucky]

Originally Posted by Partless

I get mad at myself for this, well, after I get mad at T, haha. The thing is that sometimes my T seems to reflect back my own look of apprehension, which to me feels awful, because I want to pass the pain to her for her to neutralize it but it doesn't work if she looks as fearful as I do. Then other times I look apprehensive and instead she has this everything-is-gonna-be-okay smile which half the time calms me but other half the time seems presumptuous and conceited, as if she knows better or my problems are trivial.

Then once I mentioned this to her (a softer and less blaming version of the above) and she said with a smile, Well...how do you want me to react?

Then I got mad at myself. I thought to myself, Well what the hell do I want?

I felt embarrassed though I don't think she meant to embarrass me, she was just asking as a way to bring my attention to what it is that I want but now I find it a kind of weakness in me, as if I'm a child who won't be pacified.

But I don't want to be mad at myself, I want to be compassionate. So I thought I'll ask here, see if anybody can relate...hopefully. Therapy can feel like such a lonely endeavor sometimes, it helps me bring compassion to myself if I can find others share some aspect of how I feel.

Does what I say make any sense?

Perhaps your T is using body language to communicate with you...? Body language includes the face, legs, feet - the whole body. When I cross my arms across my chest, my T follows suit. I hate it, but body language is a dead give-away when trying to understand what others think or feel.

[CantExplain]

I found Madame T difficult to read. Then I worked out that she was deliberately making her face blank. Unfair, I reckon.

[growlycat]

Compassionate but not patronizing. I get this!

[Cinnamon_Stick]

My therapist has the most expressive face of anyone I have ever known! I can tell what she is thinking without her saying anything. I can't do that with anyone else. I do agree that T's reflect your emotions. When I am sad, my T looks sad. When I am happy, she looks happy and is smiling and laughing. I don't like her really serious look she has. During my last session she looked annoyed or hurt and seeing that really bothered me. I couldn't look at her.

I understand what you are talking about.

[feralkittymom]

My T did not make a habit of reflecting my emotions back at me, thankfully. That would drive me to distraction. But he generally did have a neutral expression, and as a result I did feel that he was holding my emotions for me, and I found it very stabilizing. Where his emotion would show itself was in his voice.

[Out There]

Therapy can feel like a lonely endeavor sometimes. My T is very good at using all aspects of himself - body language and voice - to be holding and containing for me. I've developed compassion for myself over the course of the last year , for the things that have happened , for the things I didn't get.

My T is excellent at the 'blank slate' thing. Only problem there is that I hate the blank slate thing! Its not that I want OTT dramatic expressions or anything. Its just that I don't feel safe if I don't know what he's thinking. I would much rather see his negative expressions than no expressions at all. Fortunately he's getting the hang of that now, which is making it much much easier for me to trust him

[awkwardlyyours]

Not sure if I have any suggestions for the OP mostly because I totally ignore / discount my T's expressions.

She usually has a "I'm-trying-to-focus-really-really-hard-to-solve-this-Math-problem" kind of face -- which isn't what I have (it would put way too heavy a strain on my facial muscles to keep it up for the hour as she does).

Once in a while, if I show any positive emotion, I guess she attempts to reflect it and smile but that's it.

What you say makes sense to me. I never experienced her mirroring my facial expressions, but they were mostly appropriate, neutral, for the particular discussion. There were a few times I did question her facial expressions that did not seem to fit, because the one time i didn't, I was wrong, and l decided I was too much for her, and sought out a second therapist.

When I was struggling with shame and talking or being silent through it I could not look at my therapist, but I would feel her looking at me, either with a smirk or pity. I would demand that she not look at me. She always told me she wasn't, and that was true. She waited for periheral movement and then waited a few seconds before looking at me. It allowed me to compose myself.

[feralkittymom]

If my T had exhibited an expression directly opposed to my expressed emotion, I would have experienced it as a misattunement and felt either angry or rejected. I experienced emotion as overwhelming and destructive and dangerous; emotions weren't feelings, they were entities--like the monster under a child's bed. If my T had mirrored such expressions, it would have been like feeding the monster.