How do I build trust with a guarded or resistant client?

You have learned to connect with most people. The guarded ones defeat you because the usual warmth bounces off, and pushing harder only makes them close tighter. That is not your technique failing. It is that a wall like that was built for a reason, long before you arrived. Resistance is usually protection. Someone who will not open up has often learned that opening up got them hurt. The way in is not to break the wall down, it is to become safe enough that they lower it themselves. That means patience, no agenda they can feel, and proving over time that you will not push or judge. Let them set the pace. Trust given slowly by a guarded person is often the deepest kind. With your most closed-off client, drop the goal of a breakthrough this session. Just be steady, consistent, and unhurried, again and again. Sometimes the whole intervention is showing up the same way long enough that they finally believe you will still be there. Slow is not failure here. Slow is the treatment.