Therapy is something that has forced me to recognize that attraction, love, and arousal don't always fit into neat boxes like I think they should. T's tend to emphasize that the relationship is not romantic but what does that even mean? I think concretely it just means the T will not be your partner, only your T, and they will not engage in sexual behavior. Hand holding is a little on the edge because some clients could perceive it as sexual. I heard of a case once where a T got reported for touching a client's ankle with his foot. The T claimed it was to get the client's attention and the client thought it was sexual. So T's tend to be overcautious about that kind of thing because they don't want to get reported. Even though you think you would never report your T for that, sometimes clients, especially if they are on the trauma or personality disorder spectrum, can turn on their T's and use everything they have against them. So T's are right to be cautious if they want to keep their jobs.

But outside the issue of T's worrying about their licenses...romantic and sexual feelings do happen in therapy. In my case, my T is old enough to be my mother so I don't consider myself to be attracted to her in the conventional sense. But I am still attracted to her. I do fantasize and daydream about her, and while the fantasies aren't sexual in nature, I sometimes am aware of feeling sexually aroused by them in a physical way. I get the same reaction in session if she says something particularly warm or I make a lot of eye contact with her. I just consider that the feeling of intimacy is so strong that it does "cross over" into the realm of sexuality to an extent. In a similar way there have been stages of therapy where the attachment feelings were so strong that they felt romantic or erotic.

Like you, Rainbow, I am married to a man but I actually consider myself to be bisexual. I do feel a little (not much) ashamed of my attractions to women. I think it is internalized homophobia and probably residual shame about sexuality in general. I have so many female friends and part of me thinks they would be skeeved out somehow if they thought I could be attracted to them. As though I had an ulterior motive for wanting to be around them. I'm sure that's probably not true, and it doesn't make sense because I have a lot of gay female friends and I never worry about them being attracted to me or not. But I haven't even told my T that I am bi because I am afraid maybe she wouldn't hug me anymore. Again, something I have no evidence for.

Anyway, I feel your pain. I dunno, it seems like your T is super cute AND you feel really close to her emotionally so it's kind of duh that you would feel attracted, right? You would have to be unusually straight not to, IMO. I think it sucks that I grew up thinking sexuality is only good if it's towards a member of the opposite sex to whom you are married. Really it could be fun to be attracted to lots of kinds of people if there wasn't so much shame around it.