I don't think it is really my job to stay with a therapist just to be kind. We're not talking generally about the public or who we're friends with, etc. We're talking about a level of personal comfort, for whatever reason, with a therapist that we need to have that level of comfort to just feel safe enough to open up with. I completely reserve the right to choose a therapist based on my comfort level with whatever it is I need comfort around.


For some people, they refuse to see a male therapist. So, are we being unkind by judging a man because we feel he will be like all the other men in our life who have hurt us and we are prejudging him because of our personal experience? To adjust your words: Being a man doesn't make him a bad person. Just an example, but bottom line, it helps to have a therapist that you don't have a discomfort with for whatever reason.


If something is going to immediately get in our way, we're the consumer, and we have the right to make choices about where to spend our money. No one is going up to this therapist and saying "I don't like you because you are overweight." They are just silently making a decision (about several problems with this therapist in addition to the weight) to seek out someone different who they can feel more comfortable with.


I had totally forgotten about this until this thread: I very, very briefly saw a therapist (one session) who was a quadriplegic and on a respirator. I had no forewarning that was the case, and it definitely threw me off. I am as enlightened and comfortable as anyone about physical disabilities, probably more than most; I'm married to a man with serious physical handicaps. Normally I don't bat an eye, but I simply wasn't prepared, and in my anxiety simply for seeing a new therapist in the first place, this was just a bit more than I was prepared for. For some reason, it really heightened my anxiety. I didn't return, partially because of the physical issues and partially because I was just so emotionally off-kilter from the session that I just couldn't return -- I didn't even seek a different therapist in that clinic. I never went back. I wasn't being unkind; I was simply dysregulated by the situation unfolding the way it did. If I had said anything cruel or complained to the clinic, sure, that would be unkind, but I made a personal decision that this particularly situation was not going to work for me and moved on.