How do you show that you care?

I don’t know if this is a weird question. But, how do you show your therapist that you care about their life too? Like, I don’t necessarily want to know about their personal life, I just want them to know that I care because I guess they put me first.

Do people just know how to show that they care about others? Like I know that I deeply care about a lot of things, but I can never outwardly express or say things.

By typing this out I think I have answered my own question.

Just basic communication. It may depend on the dynamics with a person's therapist perhaps. With my therapists, we were pretty informal and always engaged in a certain amount of chit-chat about family activities, etc - really not therapy conversation - just friendly banter. In that way, we got to know each other just as people rather that just therapist/client. So, we developed a clear "caring" relationship like you would for anyone you engage with on a regular basis. It was just sort of a given after a time.

I made some scales and used A2 drawing paper to do it. He commented on that he liked the quality of the paper, so next session I had the brand and type written down for him. That's it, so far. I'm not a fan of expressing that I care at all, either, so when he asks if I care/ like coming to therapy, I just say yes and leave it at that.

She seems really uncomfortable when I ask even the slightest personal thing. I asked what kind of dog she had and she was uncomfortable answering. She won't talk to me about food or what she likes to drink or anything off topic and I don't push things or take it personally. I told her I liked her, like in working with her, and she wanted to make sure it was strictly in a theraputic way. So now I don't try to have any type of personal conversation with her I just focus on my goals. Which seems to be working out.

We worked on a food log together and I've been working on it pretty well. I do respect her so I do make an effort to try.

I express empathy if she tells me something that happened or upset her etc (she usually tells me these things as a way of relating, sharing a perspective that’s different than mine if it’s helpful to me, not as unrelated complaints about her personal life).

I didn't care about their life - it had nothing to do with me and they set the game up so that clients are other so their life was their problem was my approach. I paid them on time -that was the exchange -they sat and did nothing and I tossed to them expensive rent money for time I used their office.

I don't particularly care about her life, although I wish her the best. I do care about her wellbeing in an abstract sort of way, but rarely the particulars. I suppose I try to be considerate and not an asshole. I guess that's kind of a bare minimum, though.

I suppose telling her I hoped she would have a good vacation after expressing how much I didn't want her to go off right now could count as an expression of care. But the thing is, I'm never convinced if I care in a genuine way or because I can only count on her if she's ok and takes care of herself. So maybe it's self-serving. E.g. I'm not sure if I hope she has a good vacation in a disinterested sort of way or just because I don't want her to get burned out because then she couldn't be a good therapist for me.

I mostly do little communication things, like saying have a good vacation, expressing annoyance when he tells me something that would be annoying for him, wishing him to get well soon if he's sick... recently, I also gave him two kn95 masks so he could try them out without having to buy a whole pack.