Important in all currently-heralded forms of cognitive psychotherapy is an emphasis on “mindfulness,” exhortations to meditate. If you are a dedicated practitioner of Judaism or Christianity, this might pose a problem for you if you are a psychotherapy patient or client. I know that “it drove me crazy” over a period of more than a decade, when I could not persuade my psychiatrist that I spent/spend at least as long daily at prayer than he was encouraging me to meditate. He wanted 15-20 minutes, whereas with all the blessings and the prayer service, I was sure that I focused on G-d’s majesty and sovereignty at least as long as he desired me to focus on my own ego via my breath.
Of course, both of these monotheistic religions have traditions of meditation, but they are G-d focused, not centered on the self.
I suggest that you keep a time log for a few days and jot down in it all the blessings and prayers that you say, as to their duration. Show this to your mental health clinician the next time that this problem arises. It may “seal the deal” to persuade him or her that you are experienced at focusing and becoming calm, which after all are the outcomes therapy seeks in pressuring you to concentrate on secular, or worse for the religious in a Western tradition, Eastern phraseology or on your breath.
If you get nowhere with that stratagem, urge that a verse from Psalms be the focus of your meditation.
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