Why Some Therapy Clients Share Gently but Feel Deeply |
She walked into the room with a polite smile, placing her backpack carefully beside the chair as if not to disturb anything.
When I asked how her week had been, she answered promptly: “It was fine. Just busy. Nothing special.”
Her tone was steady. Her posture upright. But she gripped the zipper of her jacket so tightly that her knuckles had turned pale.
In many Western frameworks, this kind of presentation might be labeled as minimizing, emotionally distant, or a
“detached protector” mode. But as we spoke, a different picture emerged.
She wasn’t shutting down. She wasn’t withholding.
She was practicing emotional restraint: the belief that personal distress should not inconvenience others, especially someone in a position of care.
In her cultural context, offering a smooth, contained answer was not........