This weekend I have the first of three weekend group therapy sessions that span over the next three months. It starts Friday night, goes all day Saturday (early morning, until late evening), and all day Sunday (early morning start, early evening finish). It's a special thing my T invited me to, to help with my healing progress. Normally it costs a lot to go, but my T and the other therapist waived the fee for me and offered it to me. I have a few goals already set out for my self ranging from small and easily obtainable, to one major one. I attended my first real group therapy session last month, same idea with T and another facilitator, it was all weekend long, but this one is a lot more intense. One of my mid range goals is to make frequent eye contact with my T and the other therapist. I struggle greatly with eye contact, especially with T. It's something that is important for me to work on because I feel like I need to start pushing myself to connect more with her, that way I don't struggle as much to let myself express emotions. I avoid eye contact for various reasons; I find eye contact threatening, with T she knows very detailed things about my life and that makes it hard, if I'm emotional eye contact usually tips me over the edge and I cry, it also makes me feel very vulnerable and exposed.
Do you have any tips on how to work up to this? Do you have trouble with this too? I have the whole weekend, but my end goal is to be able to look my T in the eye for longer than a fleeting second. I have what I think to be a good relationship with T, I trust her, I trust her judgment, and I trust her not to hurt me - which is huge, that came recently in the last month. Logically I knew very early on that she would never hurt me (not intentionally), but emotionally I didn't believe that until about a month ago. I'm actually excited to see what happens this weekend, I'm less anxious than last time even though I know this group goes a lot deeper.
Do you have any tips on how to work up to this? Do you have trouble with this too? I have the whole weekend, but my end goal is to be able to look my T in the eye for longer than a fleeting second. I have what I think to be a good relationship with T, I trust her, I trust her judgment, and I trust her not to hurt me - which is huge, that came recently in the last month. Logically I knew very early on that she would never hurt me (not intentionally), but emotionally I didn't believe that until about a month ago. I'm actually excited to see what happens this weekend, I'm less anxious than last time even though I know this group goes a lot deeper.