Personally, Ornery, I rather like your opinions. I always read what you say and I like the person I imagine in my head that says the things you say. I see you as a person with personal integrity. Take this thread as an example. You did the unthinkable, you exposed vulnerability, need, self questioning, curiosity, and weakness. You are going to counseling. Somebody in the world matters to you. My God , man, you're human, you care, you have feelings. I salute you.
As to your question, I think your heart is already way ahead of your head. If we could sit together and talk something like this through, the direction I would try to head the conversation is in getting you to explore how YOU feel about your opinions, not what I think. As a general principle of human relationships, though, I think things are something like this. There may be something about you that bothers me, lets say, hypothetically, your too opinionated. There may be something in you, also hypothetically, some insecurity, let's say, that causes you to compensate by expressing yourself with extreme (masking) vehemence. It would be kind of like your personality. I on the other hand may have grown up wioth a very opinionated father whonever let me get a thought in edgewise. When I'm around you I feel intimidated, powerless and stupid. You might tell me that I should stand up more for myself and say what I think. I might tell you to shove it up your, well you know. So we head off to get some help.
My point of view is this. The fact that you are opinionated may spring from some unconsciously unresolved problem in your psyche. That is your problem and if I were totally healthy it wouldn't bother me in the slightest that you have that problem. It's your problem. But because I'm not healthy in this area, I have a prior feeling of inferiority around opinionated people, and can't relax my guard for fear they will put me down, I react in some unhealthy manner which is totally my problem, but because you may be unhealthy in the area of my response, you'll give my your opinion of what you think of that. So around we go. The healthy way out is for each of us to take responsibility for any hurt we feel, that's our problem, while acknowledging that we may be radiating unhealthy vibes that cause others problems. The idea is to get off the blame game. It's the other person's fault, it's him or her that causes us to feel bad. No, they are only trigering old pain that is our responsibility. It doesn't mean they aren't nuts, it just means that they have that right and it needn't bother us. We don't ever win by changing them, we win by changing ourselves. Through self work and acknowledgment of the old pain, feeling it, we can completely transform the way we react to the world. Good luck to you, sir.
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