Initially I wanted someone closer to my age. I started therapy when I was 33 and first contacted a T who was 42 or so. He could not see me and referred me to my T who is 30 years older than me. For me that felt very strange, I even remember that I asked him during the initial phone call whether he doesn't think that he is too old for me and I honestly thought that he might be too old to understand the problems of a young woman (whom I considered myself).

But that was my personal bias, due to the almost complete lack of any kind of decent parenting. I had never had any sort of close relationship with anyone who could be age wise considered as my parent. I never even considered relating to anyone who would be considerably older than me because these people are you know old people and what do they know about life and things.

So, for me it was very useful to start working with someone who age wise could be my parent because it over time made me realise that not all older people are so useless as my own biological parents but there are decent and interesting people among them. I do not have this age bias anymore, at least not in such a pronounced degree and that's a clear win for me.

As for transferences, I have mostly perceived my male T as motherly. First, because he can be very motherly and secondly I guess I just needed mothering so much, having never experienced it before. On the other hand, when I was seeing another therapist temporarily few years ago, who was also 30+ years older than me, I perceived him more as fatherly because somehow he just had more fatherly qualities.

I haven't seen any younger T but I guess it would be difficult for me to feel these mother/father longings for someone who would be my age but maybe 10 years age difference would have been enough? I don't know and I guess I never have to find out because I'm pretty sure that when I finish with my T in 4-5 years or so then I'm done and I don't need such intensive therapy anymore.