For me, transference feelings pop up from time to time in my therapy, and they have been both paternal and erotic. It was interesting to note when they appeared, I can only recall a couple of times with the paternal. Once I was working with some feelings from my younger self over a few sessions and she kept saying things where I would retort "he's not your dad." That had a few different meanings. Another time I spent quite a few sessions in therapy talking about a stranger assault when I was a young adult and the older man who rescued me. It felt like he was the man who rescued/protected me and that felt really paternal.

With erotic transference, which has been more recent and less often/intense than the paternal, it appeared at a time when I was considering maybe dating again for the first time in more than a couple of decades. It seems just part of the process to consider what it would be like to be physical with another man, and projecting the t into this role just seemed natural as he was the safest person I could imagine.

I think mindfulness and meditation have been helpful for me in letting these thoughts go, but it helped me to accept them to realize that the transference appeared for a reason and had a purpose.

In discussing these issues with T, I didn't always tell him about it-- I worked with some of the young girl's stuff in session, but didn't discuss the daddy stuff with him. I did admit my rescue feelings/fantasy in session but I recall he responded in a way that allowed me to feel heard but we didn't spend much time on it. The erotic stuff I've never told him about, maybe I would if it came up again.

For me much of therapy is done by myself out of session, as I live my life and pay attention to how I respond to people and situations. Sometimes I share what I have worked on in session, but mostly I don't. When I have talked about it, however, it has been important for me not to label it as "transference" because I think that term itself is loaded with all kinds of stuff that isn't part of my experience and that labeling charges it in a certain way for me. I just say "something is bubbling up for me in my head" or whatever.

So no pressure for you on what you do with these feelings, there is no should that you have to talk about it immediately or that you can never discuss it ever. There are a range of possibilities between those 2 extremes, you can find something that works for you.