Agreed. If you're used to people judging you and/or judging yourself, it can be rather jarring to have a T just accept you as you are and whatever you tell them and have done. I think we often have certain messages in our heads from childhood, like from how our parents or other authority figures would react to something we did, so we expect a T to react the same way.

There have been a few times when I felt like my T and marriage counselor would be angry with, disappointed in, or just annoyed by me, but they didn't express that. Like when I first told them I SHed, I was expecting them to have a judgmental or disappointed look, but they just looked at me the same as always. MC had been joking with me a bit in the waiting room before my appointment with T, and I'd assumed he must not have known about the SH because he was acting so normally toward me. But I found out from T that my p-doc had told both of them (well, my T already knew--and yes, I give them permission to share info) at their staff meeting earlier that day. Which surprised me. It was like, "I screwed up. Why aren't you judging me?" (regarding T, too). That lack of judgment can be healing. But of course you first have to be willing to open up.