We Don’t See the Wound, We See the Scar.

Her partner had spent weeks trying to explain his hurt.

The eye roll.
The changing of the subject.
The feeling of trying to emotionally reach her and suddenly losing her.

And now it was time for me to focus on her.

Sometimes in therapy, people give me access to their inner world quickly.

The tears come easily.
The vulnerability sits close to the surface.
The emotional thread is easy to follow.

Sometimes I have to gently draw it out over time.

And then there are moments like this one.

A person sitting across from me giving short answers.

Minimal ones.

Careful ones.

Long pauses before speaking.

A visible effort to remain composed.

And when the answers become longer, I can feel the labor inside them.

The hesitation.
The containment.
The effort it takes to stay emotionally present while also trying not to unravel.

As an Emotionally Focused Therapist, part of my work is slowing the room down enough that I can begin sensing the emotional landscape underneath the conversation.

Not just the words.

The pauses.
The hesitations.
The shutting down.
The reaching.
The withdrawal.
The places where people suddenly disappear emotionally.

And part of how I do that is by using myself as a kind of barometer in the room.

I pay attention to what begins happening inside of me as I sit with a couple.

As the session continued, I noticed something happening inside of me too.

I found myself working harder.

Reaching further.
Trying more intensely to emotionally find her.

And whenever that happens in therapy, I have learned to pay attention to it.

Because sometimes what I am feeling in the room tells me something important.

Not always about the client.

Sometimes about myself.

So internally, I pause and ask:

Is this my own anxiety?

Am I overfunctioning?

Trying too hard to create movement?

Because sometimes I am.

But other times, what I begin to realize is that I am sitting with protection so strong I can feel it shaping the room itself.

And often, when protection becomes that strong, I know something far more painful is living underneath it.

And slowly, the moment starts looking different to me.

At first glance, it would be easy to interpret her quietness as disengagement.

But sitting with her longer, it begins feeling less like absence and more like effort.

Not indifference.

Containment.

As we slowed the process down together, she began describing what happens internally for her during these conversations.

The overwhelm.

The frustration.

The feeling of not knowing what to do with the emotional intensity being placed in front of her.

At one point, she described some of her own reactions as almost innocuous.

A change of subject.
Pulling away slightly.
Trying to move the conversation somewhere less emotionally intense.

But sitting with both of them, I was struck by how differently the same moment was being experienced inside the relationship.

And suddenly, the moments her partner experiences as dismissal begin looking different to me too.

Not harmless.

Not painless.

But more understandable.

Because underneath the shutdown, I begin noticing something else.

She is trying very hard not to lose control of herself emotionally.

Trying not to escalate the conflict.
Trying not to embarrass him.
Trying not to make the conversation bigger or more painful than it already feels.

Even in the therapy room, I can feel how hard she is working to stay with the process despite how emotionally uncomfortable it is for her.

And strangely, there is kindness in that too.

At one point in the session, I shared something carefully with her.

I told her that part of what I do as a therapist is use myself as a kind of instrument in the room — almost like a barometer.

And as I sat with her, I could feel how difficult it was becoming to emotionally reach her.

Not because she was unwilling.
Not because she did not care.

In fact, part of what moved me in the moment was realizing how much effort she was already exerting just to remain present.

I told her I sensed very strong protection.

And the moment I named that, something shifted.

Her eyes became teary.

Just briefly.

Then she stopped.

And somehow, that stopping told me just as much as the tears did.

Because in that moment, I realized I was not yet at the wound itself.

But perhaps I had been allowed into the courtyard protecting it.

So I tread carefully.

Gently.

Not because I am afraid of the wound.

But because I have learned that healing rarely happens when people feel emotionally forced open.

I remember thinking how easy it would have been to stop at the eye roll.

To stop at the shutdown.
The short answers.
The frustration.
The emotional distance.

To mistake the visible reaction for the whole story.

Because we do not see the wound first.

We see the scar.

The visible adaptation.
The shutdown.
The defensiveness.
The eye roll.
The seemingly innocuous change of subject.

And scars often invite reaction.

But wounds invite care.

If this reflection resonated with you, you can explore more writings in Love in Practice or learn more about working together here.