Therapist Wants Me to Make Eye Contact

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Thanks everyone for your responses. I'll be sure to talk to my therapist about this, I just hope he listens.

Humans and bonobos are about the only primates to use eye contact for other than aggression/threat display.
Obviously us not liking to do it is some kind of 'primitive' trait. A throwback to a time when eye contact only meant one thing. Kill time.
And have you not noticed that it gets a little easier when the subject matter is grave (like someone with cancer) or if you are very angry at the person you're addressing?

What this means, then, is that whenever we are forced into making eye contact we kinda make ourselves a little angry. That anger, of course, obviously not being good for social stuff.

Explain this to your therapist. If they reject it then fire him/her immediately.

We now have proof (from brain scans) that the amygdala goes haywire when an autistic holds eye contact. NOBODY in the mental health profession has any excuse for ignorance anymore.

Depends on the situation

Based only on your description, it sounds to me, that, if you trust your counselor, you should make eye contact

The counselor might want you to practice. As in for your own good

However the counselor might just want eye contact, as in being a control freak

One former counselor had the nerve to correctly tell me that I failed to make eye contact....... That was before the diagnosis

A former psychologist had the nerve to tell me to go to a consignment store . To get clothes

He could have pointed out that maybe consignment store clothes would help me get a job and friends

But I am not telepathic.

Or maybe I just hurt his eyeballs and he had selfish motives

With therapists, doctors, etc., I usually try to smile and make eye contact when greeting and thanking at the end of a session at least. This seems to help reassure them. But might be easier for me than for many autistics as it comes somewhat naturally and I seem to have a fairly expressive face (have been told, although my facial expressions are still often misinterpreted by NTs)
While in the session I tend look at floor so I can concentrate on what they're saying and what I'm trying to say. I might make occasional eye contact in silences too.

I agree with what many others have said. You're therapist isn't going change you're brain wiring. Probably best to look for another one if that"s an option.

Hi, just a bit of an update.

I told my therapist about it and he didn't seem to reach the conclusion that I didn't really want to do eye contact. He continues to try and practice it with me and I'm too shy to say anything.

Well, I suppose something will have to give sooner or later. Either you'll find eye contact gets less painful or you'll continue to find it so bad for you that you'll finally have to stop doing his bidding and he'll just have to accept defeat on that one. Can't you just stop going there and find another therapist? He seems awfully pushy and more certain of the rightness of his treatments than I'd think anybody ought to be. Or maybe you could write him a letter or something, if that's any easier for you than telling him in person to stop pushing the eye contact thing. Or maybe somebody else could have a word with him on your behalf.

I really don't think eye contact is so vitally important - it's no doubt useful if you can do it fairly painlessly, but I've got away with very little eye contact - I very often forget it, or find it distracts me too much from focussing on what's being said to me, and when I do remember it, I usually just shoot the occasional glance and look away for the rest of the time, which seems to do the job OK. In a lot of social encounters the detail of what's being said isn't that important, so that's when I risk it the most. But mainly I just don't look right into people's eyes, and yet I've managed to hang on socially. I don't know where this society is that expects eye contact so strictly. Most people I associate with are fairly tolerant about that kind of thing.