Entire books could be written about eye contact, but for the sake of brevity, let’s limit our consideration to eye contact in the therapeutic context. Except even before that, we must zoom out and understand the cultural context in which therapy is taking place. Eye contact means different things in different cultures. In Asian cultures, too much eye contact can be off-putting, or even disrespectful. Meanwhile, my father was very clear when I was a young boy, that politeness

An interesting hypothesis is that the effectiveness of therapy has an inverse relationship with the culture’s acceptance of therapy as a practice. In other words, if the culture is intolerant of therapy, and sees those who go to therapy as "wrong" in some way, then the potential for a place where one can be accepted—instead of judged—and say anything that comes to mind will most likely be of enormous, almost inconceivable value. On the other hand, if we lived in a culture whe