I personally have hard time believing that someone who has been through all the psychological and therapy studies to get licensed as a T could be so completely blinded by "countertransference" that they genuinely fail to see how their behaviors in these situations are wrong. I do believe it can get blurry and fall out of awareness at times driven by own desires and wanting self-gratification, but for the long times many of these stories span? I just can't believe it, there must be clear moments for these Ts where they see their actions for what they are and how they got out of control. Of course there is also the fact that awareness is one thing - action and change often is entirely another. Obviously some Ts get stuck in the grey area of denial in between, just like clients or anyone can.

I have never been in such a situation with a therapist, but in a scenario that has become so complex and advanced such as these stories (just read the one from toomanycats as well), I really don't see how this could be "worked out" in a healthy, constructive way with the same person that encouraged developing it and calls it psychotherapy. I have no problems comprehending that there are cases where T and client develop genuine, mutually positive and life-enhancing friendships, but if it is truly healthy and positive, the client won't come here to express a lot of pain and conflicting feelings over it. The very fact that these recurring, negative, doubtful, disturbing feelings exist, to me, is proof that something is just not right about the whole situation. Also, I agree with the notes that most normal adult friendships don't tend to involve the variety of touch described here unless it's a relationship with blurry and shifting boundaries - this is something I am very familiar with as "uncategorized friendships" were the code of my own youth and I did not recognize it as a problem at all, for many years. In fact, I tended to see my relationships with fuzzy boundaries and roles as a more evolved form of human connection, often saying even to others "why put labels on relationships and place them into a box"? I used to mix everything: professional, friendship, romantic etc, all over the map. Eventually I recognized the true current underlying these stories in my life and now it is very different, but it didn't happen overnight, to say the least, and only after many many such experiences. So in this sense, maybe these experiences with a T can be useful... but only if not overly destructive for a client.