I put "other" because it did both harm and some good.

But I am not sure how exactly to define "special treatment". Is it just some kind and warm gestures that go outside of a normal way of practicing for a particular therapist that aren't really violating professional boundaries, or they don't feel like a violation or aren't considered a violation by the ethical code?

See, when it comes to therapy, it's usually impossible to set hard and fast rules and criteria that would tell you exactly what is a benign "special treatment" and what is a boundary crossing/violation that could lead to ethical problems. In one scenario, giving a patient a hug may be very therapeutic and innocent and in the other scenario it may be the beginning of a potential trouble. And is a hug a special treatment in general? It may be, again, in some cases but in others it's just a spur of the moment and comes out of pure spontaneous compassion for the suffering of the human being in front of you rather than an established attitude towards that person.

This all is so subjective and uniquely depends on individual situations that it's hard to understand what special treatment is in therapy and what it was in my particular case.

I guess, seeing me outside of therapy settings could be seen as the ultimate special treatment by my T as he admitted that he would never consider doing it with his other clients. Did it help? In terms of meeting my goals and achieving what I wanted to achieve, no, it didn't help one bit. That entire relationship had sucked out so much of my life energy I could've used much more effectively otherwise and the confusion it created that cause a lot of emotional damage. At the same time, oddly enough, seeing him outside of therapy room eventually made it easier for me to end the relationship because outside of therapy the power imbalance between us was somewhat diminished.

Other than that, while I was in therapy, there was more self-disclosure from him than it was helpful to me but I suspect he disclosed a lot to others as well. The guy was emotionally needy and used every chance to find compassionate ears even if they belonged to his patients.

He made me hot tea before each session, which could be considered a special treatment but that actually felt good and I didn't have any problems with that at all. I didn't read into that and didn't try to interpret it like anything other than a kind gesture regardless of what could've motivated him in reality. I really didn't care why he did that. The tea was just the tea for me. Nothing more than that. It actually helped me relax and talk more freely in session.

Other stuff like holding my hand frequently, telling me that he loved me and that he felt intensely about me in and out of sessions, that I was "in and around" him was a clear ethical violation and while it could be seen as a special treatment, there was nothing benign and well-intentioned about it at all. It was super seductive, and like all seductive stuff it worked like a drug. It felt fantastic in the moment but it created frequent withdrawal reactions, and a reasonable conscious part of me was very worried.

It's impossible to describe everything here that could be seen as a special treatment. Like I said, all in all, it was harmful in many ways, but in some ways some of the things he did helped me. One of them was recognition and admiration of my unique gifts. He was the first person who could truly "see" me and who told me to follow my soul's callings at all times regardless of what others think of me. What others had been seeing in me as pathology, he saw as a spiritual gift and something beautiful. This was incredibly important to me and has been helping me since then. But I don't consider this recognition as special treatment though. To me it was therapy and the best part of therapy. He didn't have to violate ethics in order to give me that.