Yes, I know they're real feelings, but surely there is resonance with nearly all emotional situations once we get past a certain point in life - because we've been through the same sh#t before - even if it's not transference in the strictest sense of the word? I mean, sometimes when I get pangs about this therapist it feels linked to the intensity with which she said she would never leave, which was her kind of fulfilling a maternal gap - and yeah I can see how that triggers a longing that's rolled up in transference. But also it reminds me of a romantic break up in terms of feelings. And I saw so much of her vulnerability, due to her inability to keep her stuff out of my therapy, that sometimes I have dreadful feelings of devastation that I can't protect her, and look after her, knowing she's out in the world and somebody else gets to do that.. I don't think that is transference.

Sometimes, yes. One or two lines sending love. That I can read as genuine or banal lip service - that doesn't upset me, but I really don't know how they are meant.