I am a therapist and have been thinking a little about your question and how to answer it. I think the most important thing for me is that I had my own therapy and experienced it! It means I am comfortable with transference - whether it be positive, negative, erotic, etc. It is a way to understand and is how I grew to understand myself. I would never mention the word 'transference' to my clients, rather I would just work with the relationship with me and how it feels. Transference is a normal part of every relationship but a therapist who can work with the transference can use the relationship as a laboratory to help understand something - something we cannot do in our normal relationships outside the therapy room.

If a therapist has worked transferentially in their own therapy they will have found that the erotic is an expression of something very early, that early relationship at mother's breast, which is infact incredibly erotic for both mother and baby - it is a vital part of our development and the blueprint for all future relationships. It is a very beautiful thing. So it is normal, when experiencing the care and attention of our therapists, for these feelings to be stimulated - in a need for reparation, in response to feeling close and connected. But because we are no longer babies or little ones and are now adults, these early erotic feelings often get translated into adult sexual feelings - and that is quite normal - and ok!! It can also be very frightening - I remember when it first happened to me, a heterosexual woman, with my first female therapist (who didn't get it at all and hurt me terribly), that I was very confused and frightened. I couldn't understand why I felt sexual towards her and it scared me. I have had friends who fell in love with their elderly male therapists - that was equally confusing to them until they had understood and worked with it in their therapy.

Infact, I now see this as something very beautiful that needs to be treated very carefully and with great respect - it is the basis of our capacity to love and should never be rejected or pushed away, but equally the feelings should never be acted upon by the therapist (it unfortunately happens alot) - to act them out would be tantamount to child abuse in my opinion.

Unfortunately many therapists don't understand and haven't worked through their own early attachment issues - and they are the ones who will push away, shame, reject and terminate.They will often be fearful of 'love' and showing their love for their clients - they will be defending against something in themselves they don't want to go near. The client is then re traumatised believing their love and need for attachment is wrong - to have needs, to depend, is wrong. So sad.

I welcome the clients love feelings and work with them in a sensitive way, using them to help us understand what happened to them and giving them an experience that is reparative rather than harmful - so they can eventually move away from me to have happy, loving and healthy adult relationships.

I hope that helps a little

Moon