I wonder if Yalom is all that different from any other therapist. Except maybe other therapists have different repulsion factors. Like they don't like black people or uneducated people or people with specific disorders. Or gay people.

My therapist strikes me as a weight-bigot, even though she herself was once overweight. Maybe it's BECAUSE she has first-hand experience that she has no problem bashing fatness. She doesn't censor herself around me because it's not an issue I struggle with. She uses my low-weightness as a reason I should like myself (as in, "You're smart, you're pretty, you're thin...) Early on in our relationship, I felt like I couldn't gain a pound or she wouldn't like me anymore. I'm 20 lbs lighter now than I was before therapy (which she pointed out to me). I hope this is just a coincidence.

But I'm also black. I've always wondered about how that might be affecting our relationship. I don't think she's a racist, but she has told me that her family was vehemently racist. She grew up in the segregated south, with black nannies and so forth. Racism has a way of seeping in by osmosis. She has said some things in passing that make me go WTF!, but I just attribute them to carelessness rather than maliciousness.

I can drive myself crazy wondering what she thinks about me, but I guess all that matters is how she treats me. (Easier to say than believe!)

Your fears are not unfounded, since there are indeed haters all around. But everyone deserves to be evaluated as an individual too.