It may or may not. My point was not that it absolutely has to be addressed with another therapist but that it doesn't make sense to address it with the same person they have feelings for. How one goes about it and whether they decide to go to another therapist for help or do it in other ways is their choice.

Sure. Simply seeing another therapist for this is not a guarantee that it will be worked through because you never know who you will bump into. Besides, I've noticed that therapists in general are reluctant to explore what went on in the client's previous therapy. It's some sort of fear to learn that their colleagues might've done something wrong. This is one of the biggest blunders therapists make when they are not interested in what kind of experience in therapy the client had previously or when they are dismissive of it. This happened to me as well. My subsequent therapists would always validate my experience in my previous therapy, they didn't judge me as delusional or anything like that, but I could see clearly that they didn't want to talk about it.

Nope, they can't. I've heard some stories, including on this forum, about therapists who handled it well but even in those cases people are still experiencing those feelings and may be even more intensely than ever after the confession.

But, frankly, why should anyone to be put in the position to handle them as this is the most unnatural thing to do? How can you possibly "handle" someone's sexual attraction for you or their idealization or admiration of you except just not taking advantage of that?

I am not sure what you mean by "crushing". If you mean to stop those feeling, I think it's just common sense that therapists can't stop them and I don't think anyone expects them to.

I really didn't understand what you mean by "crushing that fantasy" until it matured into "an experience we can learn from". What fantasy? What experience? And how does a fantasy mature into an experience we can learn from? Can you explain?

So it did help you get out of the mess you were in? I have similar feelings. I would've surrendered my license by now if my therapy hadn't helped me in some important ways. That's why I am not an "abolitionist" when it comes to therapy but rather a reformist. I do believe that therapy practice needs major reforms and the whole mental health system needs an overhaul, but I don't believe in abolishing it all together because, as flawed as it is, many people seem to get some benefits from it, and for many of them it may be the only reason they are still alive. If many people want to continue to receive this service their will cannot be overruled by the will of those who want to abolish it. It's fine and it's necessary to point out the flaws of the system but to insist that it has to be abolished because of those flaws is to insult many people who feel that the process is giving them something important that they couldn't get anywhere else. Just like the denial of the systemic flaws invalidates the experiences of those who have been harmed by the system, the assertion that the practice of therapy should be banned invalidates the experiences of those who experience their therapy as mostly helpful or even somewhat helpful. That's why there are so many fights and clashes on this forum. It's because some people seem to believe that their individual experiences enable them to see the whole picture and to make a final judgment of whether something has the right to exist.

Absolutely. That's why it is my belief that therapy shouldn't be support/validation/"relationship" based. I don't even think that the word "therapy" or "psychotherapy" is a legitimate word to use because it equates the whole practice with medicine while it doesn't have the precision and the certainty of medical practice. I'd use the word "consulting" which makes the whole thing much less personal and much more professional. And I'd make the work around specific issues that need to be resolved, not around discussing the "relationship".

It certainly does in some cases. In my first therapy, that was exactly the case. My T was getting sadistic pleasure out of seeing me vulnerable and paralized by strong transference. With other therapists, however, there was nothing sadistic about how they handled it but the intensity of transference was still present and wan't making me feel better.

I agree that the profession does a lousy job of informing people about what therapy process entails and, I suspect, it kind of benefits them in some ways to keep people uninformed. That's why I created my website in an attempt to remedy this situation at least to some extend. I, however, would propose not only to inform consumers about the potential harm of transference, but to take it further and to re-structure the whole process in the way that it would greatly minimize the possibility of transference emergence.