Why Does My Therapist Stare at Me? (Why It’s Weird and What to Do)
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Have you ever looked up during a session and caught your therapist’s eyes—only to find they were staring intently at you? Did you try to hold their gaze, or did you look away immediately?
Whatever your reaction was, it probably made you feel something. Maybe you felt irritated, maybe you felt intimidated, maybe you felt touched. But chances are, even if you liked it (and maybe didn’t fully understand why), it unnerved you a little.
What’s going on? Why do therapists do this?
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Surf therapy forums and you'll find dozens of stories of people grappling with the "therapist gaze," trying to figure out why therapists do this and why it feels so intense.
“Am I the only one who has trouble looking my therapist in the eyes?” many people ask. If you do, trust us, you’re not alone. It’s unusual and emotionally (and even physically) challenging to make this kind of intense eye contact, and most people are thrown off by it.
In fact, being stared at by your therapist just might be the most awkward thing you’ll experience in therapy—and that’s saying a lot.
That makes it more awkward than sitting in silence, having your therapist answer a question with a question, or asking for advice and having your therapist refuse to give you any.
Why do therapists do this weird stuff? Many irritated clients have thrown up their hands in exasperation and given up on therapy altogether because sitting in silence with their therapist staring at them was just too awkward to handle.
We can help. We can assure you that in nearly every case of awkward therapist behavior, they’re not messing with you on purpose. There’s a reason they do what they do—even stare at you like a fool. Read on to learn why a therapist’s gaze can be so unnerving, why they do it, and what to do if it’s bothering you.
What's the Deal with Eye Contact?
Eye contact is a big deal. It’s a powerful social gesture that has special meaning in nearly every human (and animal) culture—even if that meaning varies.
When you make eye contact with someone, a lot of things start happening in your brain and body. First, it commands your attention, pulling it away from anything else in your field of vision (or anything else you were thinking about).
Eye contact breaks your concentration and interferes with working memory, making it harder to remember what you were just saying.
This is why you may find you have to avoid the gaze of the person you’re talking to when you’re talking about something deep or complicated (as you often do in therapy).
Eye contact also activates mirror neurons, making you feel more connected to the person you’re looking at. This can make emotions contagious and cause your brain to release oxytocin (also called the “cuddle chemical” for its role in affectionate interactions).
As a result, prolonged eye contact with your therapist can flood you with an overwhelming sense of intimacy and closeness—something that can be hard to tolerate.
In fact, what brings so many of us to therapy is that we struggle to navigate closeness in relationships. We struggle with trust and with how much we want to let others in to our inner worlds.
If eyes are the windows of the soul, some of us are constantly trying to figure out how to adjust the blinds to keep the creeps from looking too far in. We don’t want to let the people who mean to hurt us invade our personal space again.
Exploring your feelings around intimacy, especially the fear and longing it can make you feel, can lead to important insights and breakthroughs in therapy.
So much of the growth, progress, and healing that happens in therapy depends on the relationship you have with your therapist and on whether you feel close enough to trust and open up to them.
Just meeting a therapist’s caring gaze can be enough to provoke a corrective emotional experience on its own. But it can also trigger primal defense mechanisms and cause you to shut down. It can make you feel angry or start to dislike your therapist. This is especially true if you’ve experienced trauma and it triggers your fight-or-flight response.
So, what do you do if this is true for you? First, please don’t quit therapy! Talk to your therapist about it instead. They should be able to adjust their approach so you feel less overwhelmed.
Next, consider that this may be exactly why you’ve come to therapy—to confront and feel what you normally avoid. When you feel ready, consciously exploring that discomfort in the safety of the therapy room can help you break through blocks in your relationships with others.
Dealing with Defenses
Your therapist sometimes stays silent—and stares at you—to avoid supporting your defenses.
One of the things most of us expect in conversation when we’re talking to someone who cares about us is that they take our side.
If we rant about how so-and-so is such a jerk, or tell a tender story about how someone hurt our feelings, we expect the other person to agree—what a jerk! But therapists don’t always do this.
Therapists know supporting our defenses and taking our stories at face value reinforces all the things we're coming into therapy to free ourselves from.
Your therapist wants to help you feel more of your true feelings, and sometimes that means sitting there and staring at you instead of instantly jumping to take your side. This way, you can go deeper than, “What a jerk!”
Not that they’re necessarily staring at you on purpose. Sometimes therapists maintain eye contact as a way to connect and make you feel safe, cared for, and heard (though unfortunately it can sometimes have the opposite effect!), but sometimes they’re just processing.
It’s sort of like when your mouse icon turns into a spinny beach ball or an hourglass. Their CPU is running.
DEEP DIVE
How Does a Therapist Respond?
Therapists are as interested in the process of speaking with you as the content. This means they don’t always respond in the way you expect.
When you speak with someone focused on the content of what you’re saying—which is the case with most people you speak with—conversation flows in a predictable way. After you share, they might choose between...
Therapists are as interested in the process of speaking with you as the content. This means they don’t always respond in the way you expect.
When you speak with someone focused on the content of what you’re saying—which is the case with most people you speak with—conversation flows in a predictable way. After you share, they might choose between giving you their opinion about what happened or telling a story about a similar experience from their own life. This is because they see the point of the conversation as exploring the subject of the story you’re sharing.
On the other hand, someone concerned with the process of conversation considers how their response might affect you—how it might open you up or shut you down, encourage you to go deeper or subtly nudge you to keep things on the surface. This is usually what your therapist is thinking about when they don’t respond right away. They may be considering any of the following responses:
- Silence
- A question
- A challenge
- An interpretation
- An affirmation
Therapists usually want to find ways to help you go deeper. When they respond with silence or a question, that’s usually what they’re trying to do: get you to hear yourself and reflect on what you just said. They want you to keep going. They know the best insights come from your own process of hearing and responding to yourself.
When they feel like they can push you a little harder, they may offer a challenge or an interpretation. This means they might directly contradict what you just said or offer an alternative perspective. (For example: “Are you sure you weren’t angry?”) They may also connect your story to something else—especially a significant pattern in your life. (For example: “You assume that other people are intentionally trying to cause you distress.”)
Therapists are careful with these kinds of responses, because when they’re offered at the wrong moment, challenges or interpretations can shut you down instead of open you up. They can block you instead of help you go deeper. They can also rupture or damage your relationship with your therapist, causing you to see them as hostile or uncaring, and to lose trust in them.
On rare occasions, a therapist may offer the same simple affirmation a friend would. While they normally avoid doing this, there are times they may see that it’s what you need in the moment, perhaps because you’re feeling and expressing some powerful emotions that need to come through, or because you need some reassurance to feel safe enough to keep going.
Choosing between these kinds of responses is one way that therapists can adjust the pace of therapy.
Therapists often have to go against their natural human instincts to respond in a certain way. This is why they sometimes need a moment to consider what they say. They don’t want you to feel bad, or to think they support what that jerk said or did, and part of them is pushing them to give that standard friendly response. But they know if they respond the same way that a friend would, they’re not giving you what you came there to get: therapy.
Good therapists weigh every word carefully. Sometimes, you need simple reassurance, but most of the time, therapists know it’s their job to help you go deeper so you can start to push past your defenses and question the stories that hurt you.
Deep Listening
Good therapists are some of the world's best listeners. And it's not just because they're caring, curious, and genuinely interested in you. They also learn how to listen deeply as part of their professional training.
First, therapists learn how to listen to more than just the words you use or the stories you tell. They learn to listen to the themes that emerge from everything you share over a long period of time and everything that’s going on between you in the therapy room.
This means that they listen to what you don’t say as much as to what you say. They “listen” to your body language as well as your words. They listen for metaphors and patterns. They notice when you use the same words or symbols more than once and when you interpret different situations the same way. They notice when events from your past seem to replay in your present.
To notice all these things, therapists have to concentrate. They have to home in and focus on you in a way you’re probably not used to. They’re not trying to have a staring contest with you, they’re trying to take you in. They’re trying to witness you as fully and deeply as possible.
DEEP DIVE
Why Does My Therapist Mirror Me?
Mirroring is a complex term in therapy that can refer to many different therapist behaviors. The type of mirroring that seems to provoke the most questions is when a therapist not only reflects back your own words, but also reflects your physical posture and mannerisms.
For example, you may notice your therapist is mirroring you by crossing their legs in the same way or leaning back when you lean back and leaning forward when you lean forward. You may notice that they start speaking at the same rate as you or copying some of your gestures.
Sometimes therapists do this consciously, but often, they don’t even realize they’re doing it. Either way, it helps them understand you better—and connect to you more deeply. Mirroring your posture and body language helps therapists accomplish at least three things:
- It helps them reflect your whole self back to you so you can “see yourself” better.
- It expresses a subtle sense of understanding between you that can help you feel comfortable enough to open up and share more with them.
- It helps them connect to and experience subtle things like how tense or relaxed you are, how deeply or shallowly you’re breathing, and what emotions you may be experiencing.
This may be one of the freakier aspects of therapy: your therapist can sometimes have insights about you because of how you make them feel. Through a careful process of introspection and clarifying with you, they may realize they’re feeling what you’re feeling. This can happen when they subconsciously mirror your posture, your behavior, or other subtle emotional signals, because these physical actions can generate those emotions (as well as vice versa).
This is often why a therapist maintains eye contact or at least keeps their gaze focused closely on you. By watching you closely, they can absorb—often through mirroring—subtle signals you’re sending about how you’re feeling.
Regardless of how or why they do it, a therapist’s mirroring can be useful. You don’t even have to pay conscious attention to it. Just being in the room with them can help you understand and see things like how tense you are and the genuine emotion that may be right on the other side of one of your defenses.
However, if it bothers you—therapy clients sometimes feel like mirroring is manipulative or inauthentic—tell your therapist. Talking about it can clear the air, and your therapist can try to become more conscious of it and do it less if it’s hindering rather than helping your therapy.
It’s also important for therapists to make sure you feel heard. This is something they learn to do in school as well.
Making you feel heard is an essential therapy skill because the process of therapy stops when you don’t feel heard—when you feel like your therapist isn’t paying attention, getting it, or caring about what you’re saying.
Therapists avoid making you feel this way by practicing active listening. That means they don’t simply listen, but also take actions that help them listen better—and help you feel heard.
These actions can include nodding and saying “Mm-hmm” or “Yes” at key moments, leaning forward in their chair, and using other statements and body language that encourage you to keep going.
Active listeners don’t jump in with their own judgments but make an effort to see things from your point of view.
To do this, they may repeat what you said in their own words or ask you clarifying questions to make sure what they’re hearing is what you’re trying to say.
They may also reflect your emotions back to you by describing them in words.
And they’ll usually leave a little silence after you finish speaking to avoid interrupting you before you’ve finished your thought or story.
One of the most important active listening skills for therapists is eye contact. By looking you in the eyes, your therapist shows that they are giving you their full attention. Not only does this show you that they’re not distracted by something else, it also shows they want to connect to what you’re saying on a deeper level. They want to connect with what you’re feeling, too.
However, it’s important to note therapists are trained to practice comfortable and appropriate eye contact, not an unwavering stare. They know eye contact can be intense and it isn’t their goal to overwhelm you, so most will look away and give you a break every now and then.
So, you should be able to meet your therapist’s gaze without feeling like you’re suddenly locked in a staring contest. If not, bring it up to them—they may not even realize they’re doing it, and will probably be happy to dial it down a notch.
Why Does My Therapist Watch My Hands?
Your therapist probably pays closer attention to you than anyone else you talk to during the week. That can feel a little freaky. You may notice them not only meeting your eyes, but also watching everything you do—including what you do with your hands. Why do they do this?
Part of deep and active listening is paying attention to body language. We express so much more than what we put into words. Most people intrinsically understand these nonverbal signals; they’re a huge part of our social experience.
Knowing how to read body language can help you figure out whether other people like you, whether they're anxious or relaxed around you, and whether they're being authentic. You may even start to notice how often you and other people you like mirror one another without even knowing that you're doing it.
The only thing that’s different between therapists and the average person is that therapists are trained to be more aware of mirroring and other kinds of body language so that they can be more conscious about how they use it.
The way you hold your shoulders can tell your therapist whether you’re feeling tense or relaxed. Speaking slowly can be a sign of depression (or simple fatigue), while speaking rapidly can be a sign of anxiety (or excitement).
And whether you meet their gaze and maintain eye contact (even for just a few seconds at a time) can tell a therapist many different things about you, including whether you trust them and whether you are feeling vulnerable and exposed.
DEEP DIVE
What Can My Therapist Learn by Watching My Hands?
What you do with your hands can reveal just as much, if not more, than what you do with your eyes. By watching your hands, your therapist can see if you’re feeling:
- Tense (which you may show by clenching your hands),
- Anxious (which you may show by wringing your hands or popping your knuckles),
- Full of nervous or excited energy (which you may show by twirling your hair or playing with your shirt), or
- Guarded (which you may show by keeping your hands in your pockets or crossing your arms).
And of course, there are all the everyday ways we communicate with our hands. We use hand gestures for emphasis, to express emotion, and to act out or demonstrate things we witnessed or experienced.
For example, we can show the listener just how big that crazy dog was or how close that creepy guy sat to us. We can show how embarrassed we felt (such as by hiding our face in our hands) or just how angry we were (such as by shaking our fists). Your therapist watches for this, too.
Therapists get an overall impression of you by noticing how animated or withdrawn you are.
If you’re speaking excitedly and making lots of hand gestures, they can see that you are engaged and open, and putting a lot of effort into communicating about what happened to you.
On the other hand, if you’re speaking quietly and sitting as still as possible, it can be a sign you’re feeling withdrawn and ambivalent about sharing what you’re sharing.
Of course, a good therapist doesn’t make too many wild assumptions about what any single hand or body gesture means. Instead, they’ll check in with you to let you know what they’re observing and explore whether they’re reading your nonverbal communication correctly.
Can I Ask My Therapist to Stop Being So Creepy?
Your therapist makes eye contact with you for many reasons. In nearly every case, their intentions are good.
And often, you can learn to get used to—or even to like—your therapist’s gaze. Some therapy clients have even said that, after they got used to it, their therapist’s eye contact became their favorite part of therapy. It helped them feel seen, held, and cared about in ways they rarely felt otherwise.
That said, it’s not that way for everyone. Eye contact can feel invasive and oppressive if you have social anxiety, a history of trauma, or many other issues that make eye contact difficult. Good therapists may bring up the subject if you’re avoiding eye contact, and ask to explore it with you, but they shouldn’t push you to hold their gaze if you’re uncomfortable.
Diving into deep and scary feelings in therapy can help you heal. And many of our scariest feelings have to do with intimacy and closeness to others—feelings eye contact naturally brings up. But that doesn’t mean therapy has to be miserable or unbearably awkward. There are things you can do to make sure therapy unfolds at your own pace.
The most important thing you can do when therapy is hard or uncomfortable is talk to your therapist about it.
You might be tempted to quit, and sometimes that’s ultimately what you need to do, but so many issues in therapy can be addressed with a simple conversation.
And sometimes, talking about difficult feelings you’re having toward your therapist can really open things up and become the turning point where therapy starts to get really good.
So yes, by all means, ask your therapist to stop being so creepy and staring at you so hard. Of course, you can be more diplomatic, and say instead, “I notice you keep pretty intense eye contact. Can we talk about that? It’s difficult for me and makes me feel uncomfortable.”
You and your therapist may find that it’s best to dial down the eye contact. Or you may find that after you talk about it, you become more comfortable with it. Maybe all you needed was to understand why your therapist is doing it (and that it’s natural for it to feel awkward and for you to not always be able to return their gaze).
In either case, you’ll feel so much better after you’re no longer wondering about it (and suffering through the awkwardness of it) in silence. A good therapist’s goal is to help you get as much as possible out of therapy, so your therapist should be happy to make adjustments so you can.
Conclusion
When you come into therapy, one of the first things that may throw you off is how different it is to talk to your therapist than it is to talk to anyone else. They keep the focus steadily on you, don’t always move to break the silence, and push into discomfort instead of immediately trying to dispel it. In other words, they don’t respond the way you’re used to.
One of the most unusual things therapists do is stare at you. At least, it can seem like they're staring when they're watching your every move and locking eyes with you way longer than anyone else does.
There are good reasons therapists do this, but there are also reasons it feels weird and uncomfortable when they do. Eye contact makes a lot of things happen in your brain and your body and can trigger intense emotions. It can make you feel close to another person in a good way, but it can also feel intrusive and overwhelming.
DEEP DIVE
Why Do Therapists Stare So Much?
Therapists watch you closely, maintain a steady gaze, and can seem like they’re staring at you for many reasons. In nearly every case, eye contact serves a good purpose. Therapists keep a close eye on you because:
- It helps them take in not just the content of what you’re saying, but how you’re saying it, your body language, and other subtle cues.
- Eye contact is one of many active listening skills that help them listen to you more deeply and show you they’re fully present.
- They can seem like they’re staring when they’re carefully observing you or processing what you just said and choosing how they respond.
Therapists also know that eye contact can help them connect to you—and you to them—more closely. A look can communicate so many things: compassion, caring, warmth.
Your therapist’s hope is that if you meet their eyes, you’ll feel their positive regard for you. They want you to know you’re with someone who cares. They want you to know that how you feel and what you say matter to them.
But just because your therapist has good reasons to maintain eye contact with you doesn’t mean it works for everyone or that you should just deal with it if it’s making you uncomfortable.
Often, when people try to suffer in silence when their therapist is doing something they dislike, they just end up giving up and quitting therapy instead.
So, please, instead of quitting therapy, talk to your therapist about it. You can ask them why they do it. You can ask them to stop.
You can explore whether it's something you could get used to—or even start to like—or if it's something your therapist can and should adjust.
Your therapist will welcome the conversation. Not only will it help them adjust their approach so you can get more out of therapy, but it will also open the door to talking about powerful topics that can bring your therapy to the next level.
You may find that once you start talking about eye contact, you start talking about intimacy, closeness, and trust. You may start talking about your relationships past and present, wounds you want to heal, and trauma you want to process.
It seems kind of meta but talking to your therapist about the process of therapy can lead to a lot of big insights. Not only can it improve your relationship with them, it can also improve your relationships outside of therapy. That’s the magic of therapy. Just talk to your therapist, even about the simplest things, and watch your life change.