Last week in a session my therapist dropped a bomb on me.

I have been seeing her for about five years, working on healing trauma from childhood and trying to shift negative, limiting beliefs.  Her methodology is energy medicine, using tapping and other exercises to "clear" negative beliefs.   Although I do see some benefit, I am also highly guarded and therefore it's a slow process for me to really feel any difference.  I do everything I can to keep our sessions on an intellectual or head level; emotions still scare the crap out of me. 

Anyway last week we were talking about my social circle and the lesbian community, how it's been hard for me to find people with whom I share real chemistry (stop laughing), and she segued into saying that women in relationships can't be happy with each other because there's no balance.  She said women are too emotional to be partnered and that in her experience women "become" lesbian because of a history of sexual abuse and a resulting hatred towards men.

These statements presented several challenges to me.  First, I was stunned at the generalization about abuse, and thought that if every woman who had a history of sexual abuse became lesbian, we'd be throwing one hell of a coming out party.  Second, although I am not interested in a romantic relationship with a man, I don't in any way hate men, wish they'd go away, or project my history of abuse on to anyone but my abuser.   Third, I wonder if she's essentially delegitimizing my relationship, whether this has been the case all along, and what the fuck business does she have treating lesbians in her practice if these are her beliefs about them?

But finally, beyond all that, I felt devastated.   I have spent the last several years peeling away at layers of pain that can sometimes knock me on my knees, thinking that I was in the ultimate safe space in doing so.  Like I said, I keep my guard up even in that space, but there have been moments where I am as raw as you can get.  To think that in that state of total vulnerability, there was a belief on her part that my sexual orientation could be so easily explained as reactionary and unhealthy in its nature has really thrown me for a loop.  My greatest challenge in therapy has been around trust, whether I can really trust anyone to have my back...and it seems like I misplaced it again.  I keep finding myself shaking my head, I really can't believe this.

I am at a loss as to how to proceed.  I don't know if it's more important to try to understand her or for her to better understand me.  In other words, do I have to school her on why what she said was a gross over generalization and doesn't apply to me, or is it more important that she know the impact of what she said on me emotionally?  Will either make it possible for me to continue seeing her?  What if it disintegrates even further? 

Ugh...