I'm with you on the idea that it's just plain unethical for an obese doctor to promote weight loss etc. but that a mental health care provider should be entirely without his or her own mental scars in order to sufficiently help others I must confess I dissent. I believe that as long as the T's own "issues" (for lack of better word) don't interfere directly with the therapeutic process, then they allow for more empathy and understanding on a much more realistic level than a T with a "clean mental state" who's empathy resides in a void of book knowledge.

Sometimes you just have to feel things, experience them...in order to understand them. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way condoning the practice of therapists who are SEVERELY mentally ill. Only I am saying that unless their own hurdles interfere directly with their clients (or patients, to individual preference...) then the situation is entirely morally rectified by the supplement of true empathy and realistic understanding.