Sigmund’s Psychoanalytic Couch
Sigmund Freud got two things right: almost all adult psychological problems are rooted in childhood and he allowed his clients to avoid making eye to eye contact during the therapy session by placing himself behind the client.
When you require the client to maintain the western social norm of maintaining eye to eye contact you are disturbing the ability of the client to concentrate on resolving of their problem. Many people also have eye contact anxiety and studies have shown that some cognitive processes are interrupted by eye to eye contact.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27750156/
Today almost all of my client sessions are virtual or telephone. After establishing rapport face to face on a virtual session, I will tell the client I am turning off my video feed when I am about to do an intervention or I will turn away from the video camera. I tell them by not looking at me they will find it easier to better concentrate.
Before I did virtual sessions, I turned my chair away from my clients after I gave them an explanation.
When you are doing BrainSpotting, EMDR, or EMI in person, or virtually, you can avoid eye to eye contact by positioning yourself to the side of your client when doing the procedure.
By doing this you will experience your client sessions to be less stressful, because you are less likely to experience secondary traumatic stress and traumatic countertransference.
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