She uses "my dear" almost like a punctuation mark. Even in her emails. She also calls me "sweetheart" and "sweetie". Once she called me "honeyheart", which I remember only because I've never heard that one before.

Maybe it's because I'm from the South (and she is too), where terms of endearment are flung around all the time, that it doesn't bother me. My therapist is also quite older than I am, so what would seem condescending from someone younger doesn't come across that way when she says it.