For me, therapy should imitate real relationships, it will never be the same thing because of boundaries etc. It's just a specific relationship.
But also, because this relationship is pretty close and intimate we start to have similar emotions, desires, worries like in any other REAL relationship. Luckily in this relationship, we are with a specialized therapist and we can look deeply what's really going on here. We can start noticed feelings we had no idea we have, investigate why we feel this and then change it.
It's often not possible to discuss this with a friend (in a normal relationship) because they can be angry and offended. They also don't have skills to look at many things objectively (like T can do).

So for me - a therapeutic relationship is something really valuable. It can evoke similar feelings like any relationship in real life, but it can be also discussed in details and give me a lot of information how I'm functioning in life and what should be changed.
(which is not always easy because many different feelings appear, but that's what is it for).