I don't see the slightest "honesty" in a condescending, snide remark like that. If someone said that to me I'd think it all about the woman who delivered it and her need to be judgmental. Of course seeking out, getting and embarking on a new job is intimidating. It's a combination of competing, salesmanship, testing abilities, learning new systems, developing new skills and leaping into the unknown. To suggest that carries no stress, contains no need to worry is pathologizing the normal.

And what if I really was "afraid of everything"? First, I can't be. I managed to function, travel to therapy and pay for it. I left my room, ate something and got out in the world. There is no way a general, condemning label like that would be the slightest help or insight for me. It merely asserts the woman delivered it needs to feign superiority by taking advantage of my situational vulnerability.

I don't think we stop being human beings at the consulting room door. If a girlfriend said that to me over lunch it would sound incredibly "frenemy" and catty. Being a therapist doesn't buy immunity from tact. And she sets an atrocious example of interpersonal skills.

One yardstick--if you said that to her I bet she wouldn't like it. Or if you told her she's really talking about her own fears, bet she wouldn't like that either.