Viewing the World Through Sunglasses

I spent the day at work wearing my sunglasses due to a light sensitivity caused by a recent migraine. It was interesting to watch responses of clients to the fact that my face was half hidden by the glasses. One young man stood and stared at me, refusing to sit down until I showed him my eyes. Once I looked over the glasses so he could see my eyes, it seemed like he thought, "there you are," and sat down without further difficulty. There were a couple of interactions like that, often with my kids who don't verbalize much. A bit of suspicion shared with me until I could verify my identity; what I call the body-snatcher check - "Are you really you, MJ? Prove it by doing something only you would do!"

I also realized several things about myself - I use my eyes to communicate...often! Also, my behavior management techniques feel weaker when I cannot use my eyes to direct looks of approval (or not) towards specific clients at specific times in the behavior cycle. It seemed more difficult to share the music when I was less able to share myself with my clients.

I was trained to use eye contact. I was part of a dissertation experiment way back in sixth grade that included assertiveness training (I bet that was quite a dissertation - I'd be interested to read it now...hmmm. I bet I could find it online) and one of the lessons learned was that eye contact is important.

Now, I am not one of those people who absolutely insist that others look at me (I often work with folks with diagnoses on the Autism Spectrum - eye contact is sometimes difficult), but I do insist on looking at the people I am with in a session. I've been told that I have good eye contact (often by lecturers and flight attendants), and sometimes my eye contact seems to make others uncomfortable. I continue to look at people when I am communicating. 

The sunglasses allowed me to look at others, but they couldn't look at my eyes. It changed our dynamic.

It amazes me how a simple change can so drastically change interaction patterns.


Changing something about how I interact with my clients often helps me to analyze bits and pieces of what I do with them. I've had other self-check experiences over my 23 years of clinical practice - my knee injury last year forced me to evaluate how I interact and intervene with others, there have been other migraines, breathing issues, strange bruises (mostly self-inflicted in my clumsiness) - I use these experiences to help me understand a bit more about my therapeutic relationships with my clients.
 
I think I will be able to handle the light today - I don't feel any of the other migraine effects today, so I think I can declare this one completely over - so I'll interact in my regular manner and get back to my usual way of being.