I'm cautious about writing this, because I don't want any of it to sounds like I'm defending your T or not supporting you. I am FURIOUS on your behalf, and think you have every right to be angry, feel betrayed, and never see this man again.

But then I thought of my own T, who I have been seeing for 18 months, and all we've been through. And what if he said something like this to me? And I couldn't just walk away, because we have such a history and he has been so wonderful in so many ways. Which isn't to say he hasn't also completely f***ed up. We had one session that was so awful, I wasn't sure we could recover from it--I felt betrayed and judged and heartbroken. In this session, he made a comment that made me realize he had weight bias.

I was so angry and hurt, I lashed out at him, then I retreated, wanted to quit, stop talking about it, and he wouldn't let me--said it would ruin our relationship if we didn't sort through it, so we did (and we still talk about it now and again). He said I made a lot of assumptions about him and what he was thinking/feeling/believing based on that one comment (which I did), but he also admitted that he probably has unconscious weight bias--that it's hard not to if you live in our society--and he promised to check his bias. He spent an entire weekend reading up on it. He acknowledged that he has privilege (all kinds) and that he has a responsibility to try to dismantle that. He acknowledged that, as a man, he will never fully understand what it's like to have your body objectified like women do, and he asked me to help him understand.

My point here is that your T made a grave error, and that grave error probably stems from some deep-seated, unconscious bias on his part. This is societal bias that I think most people (men and women, but especially men) have internalized. And as a T, he should have done his own work and be better able to think before he speaks, but excavating this kind of bias is not a one-and-done kind of thing because more seeps in. And our Ts are human--they do make mistakes.

If he's willing to accept your anger, to agree that it is justified, to be horrified at his comment, to look deep inside and challenge his bias, to admit to his privilege, to DO HIS OWN WORK, I think this could be salvageable and that your relationship could grow from it. It's not your job to help him grow--your job is to work on your own stuff and get the support you need to do so--but if you have an otherwise solid relationship, you could potentially work through this.

My own background includes an eating disorder, CSA, intense body shame, obesity, and I worked with a handful of women therapists and though I made some progress, I didn't make a lot. Though I felt safer with these women, felt like they could understand better what I'd been through, I also never got to the root of the issues. Working with a man (and he's not a soft man--he's a testosteroney man) has helped me so much more than any of my other therapists, not in spite of his being a man, but because of it. He has triggered me inadvertently, has stirred up my shame, I have been unable to hide with him the way I could other therapists, but then we work through it, and it's been incredibly healing (although hard work).

That may not be the case for you, or with this particular therapist, but I do think it's worth seeing him again and telling him how this made you feel, no holds barred, if you feel safe enough to do that and if there is still some semblance of underlying trust. If he doesn't own 100% his stuff, and listen very hard to what you are saying, and try to understand, then I would definitely walk.