Anti thanks so much for your insightful and empathic comments - I have to confess to being relieved to have someone empathize with and understand what I'm feeling - while it's really good to get positive perspectives on what my T has said, and to hear different viewpoints, I was starting to feel a bit like my feelings didn't matter and were incorrect - one step away from feeling in the wrong for having such a negative reaction to the email. You know what, I just feel like screaming to the heavens about how rubbish this T is making me feel and never mind being reasonable and mature about it all

You also say some insightful and wise things, that have given me lots to think about. I do think my T's choice of words was really poor, and while that's not a crime, I'd expect a T to be much more attuned to the potential interpretations of what they say than your average interlocutor - that's why it all seemed a tad sinister and threatening. To talk about being sensitive to my moods/feelings whatever, strikes me as a far better and infinitely more supportive way of saying the same thing...

You're dead right about the whole connection to the past - feeling not understood is my lifelong experience and it's pretty obvious there's some sort of pattern operating here.

And yes about CBT - though the specific approach T said she favours to use with me is Schema therapy, which involves working with (or about) parts/modes - on that basis I wasn't so averse to working with a CBT oriented T because she used some magic words that hooked me in - reparenting, meeting needs, attachment, encouraging dependency as an interim necessity, getting in touch with vulnerable feelings, getting in touch with feelings full stop - all of which go way beyond your average CBT type therapy. But I guess the training will out - she's very much into explanations and opposition and challenging even though we've both agreed that these only serve to antagonize me and aren't helpful at all. She just can't help herself . And I can't really expect her to monitor and change her natural way of being, in a session...

You've said loads more I'd like to comment on but this will end up being way too long a post, so I'll just thank you very much for your thoughtful post. Thank you