Why would I experience fear when my therapist looks down during Zoom therapy?
I see a relational psychodynamic therapist. I’ve been in therapy a while and she is wonderful with strong ethics. We do telehealth because she had to move (she is licensed in my state still).
First off I will tell her this myself. I feel anxious about it though like somehow it will make her mad or have no right to say it? Anyway when we are on Zoom every once in a while she will look down a bit while we’re talking. Like she’s looking at her keyboard or phone or something. And when it happens it’s not that I get annoyed but I get like scared. Like almost even a little panicky for a second.
I know I have hypervigilance based on emotional abuse as a child (diagnosed not self diagnosed CPTSD).
I don’t think she’s typing or would be on her phone. She’s so attuned and her ethics are really great.
I talked to her about it once before and she listened and asked how it made me feel, and what I imagined she was doing, and what it would mean. Then she said that she had admittedly being fidgeting with her power cord which she said is very unusual, and said it made her curious if she might have been having like a bit of a nervous system response herself as I was telling her more about a serious (very serious like they were disciplined) boundary crossing by my old therapist.
Anyway she handled that really well but it happened again last week and I didn’t get to tell her in the moment (also it stopped) and I’m for some reason obsessing about it.
I don’t understand why I would be. And I’m afraid maybe she’s bored or is texting or something? But based on how she treats me and my treatment that also just does not make sense. Like she’s so serious about my care. It’s just really confusing and I wonder if any therapist has any thoughts. Thank you!!