This Counselor is Starting to Worry Me

I've been in counseling for several years for anxiety and depression issues. A lot of this is related to my early life and I don't want to get into detail here. However, somethings about the current therapist are making me a little nervous.

First off, I get the impression she's a Southern Baptist. While this does not condemn her as a person, she knows of my Mormon background and I think her sect's perception of it is affecting her professionalism. I know a lot of us in Outer Blogness refer to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as a cult, but you'd be hard pressed to find an example of me referring to the organization as it exists today as such. The church is just weird.

She's brought up Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in a few of the last sessions. I've looked up the symptoms online and can see why she thinks this, but I do not think there were any events in my past that could have led to me developing PTSD. Either she's totally wrong, or I'm missing something that she is seeing. The earlier therapist brought it up once or twice as well.

While craziness may be the normal impression most of us get from Southern Baptists, even if they are living outside of the South, it is not good to find such disturbing traits in a mental health professional. Although the saying of people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones may apply here, it just makes me wonder if I'm really getting what I should be getting out of the experience or if she's applying her own prejudices in my case. Which brings up another question, is projection a real problem with psychotherapy?

I've tried to bring up the issue of her calling the Mormons a cult, but she said only, “How do you know that isn't what they want you to believe?” Now, while I'm not a big fan of the Mormon church in general, I've done my own research and come to my own conclusions. I may or may not be using my own personal biases as I still want to take something of value out of my experiences as Mormon, just as she's using her own perceptions to paint the brush of cultism on a religious denomination she doesn't personally agree with.

I don't know if her religious convictions come into play here or not. I know at times it's hard to separate what we have to do professionally from what we believe personally. (For example, I believe a lot of customers really need a good, swift kick in the rear, but I'd get fired for acting out on that belief.) It seems to me she is not separating them the way she should.