I strongly disagree with the idea that if transference or counter-transference happens in therapy, the relationship should be terminated.

First, transference is something that is very normal, healthy people experience it all the time, as do mentally ill ones. It is a word for when somebody reminds you of someone else and your brain "confuses" the two and you might react in a way or feel something that doesn't fully make sense for the new person, since it's actually about another person. If therapy were terminated whenever this happens, therapy couldn't exist. It's something that will happen to you over and over again in your life, in all kinds of relationships. Got out of a bad romantic relationship, now you have a new partner and still feel jumpy from time to time around the new one? That's transference. Got annoyed at somebody using a certain word when you were calling them to ask about their business because that's the word your mom always used for something? Transference.

It's also not just romantic or sexual feelings, it can be joy, anger, hate, sadness... and these feelings exist on both sides, the therapist's and the client's, because they are both human beings. It is impossible for either party to not experience these things from time to time. It doesn't make the therapist a bad therapist, who needs therapy and needs regular supervision.

It also doesn't mean that the client will be better off with a different therapist because these feelings will only lead to pain and hurt. Actually, quite the contrary. How should somebody learn to deal with transference issues if as soon as it happens, they are kicked out? For me personally, this would make everything worse.

I'll talk about my own experience: for 25 years, I went through the same cycle over and over again. First, I got overwhelmed by emotions and at some point couldn't deal with them anymore. Then, I reached out to people: friends, teachers, people on the internet... and most of them tried to calm me down, but that only works for so long. But I'd need them to be there again and again, my emotional issues would get worse, because I realized that if I was doing really badly, these people would continue to be there for me. Then, I fell in love with a lot of the people who tried to help me, usually because boundaries got way too blurred, due to the whole situation being rather inappropriate. And then at some point they couldn't deal with me anymore, dropped me and I was hurt. This went so far that after some time, I'd already expect people to abandon me way before it was in their head. I was comforted by someone, that means they will leave me. Which lead me to freak out more, be even more suicidal, need even more support. Which in the end leads to them really abandoning me of course.

Now, how should I ever get over this if I can't go to my therapist and when I start getting attached say "hey, I've experienced this many times before, I absolutely know you're going to leave me any second now"? Therapy is to some extend comforting, so I will experience these feelings. If in that situation I can't talk to my therapist about it without immediately being dropped, then how should I ever be able to heal? And if it happens and I develop a crush on my T, then how should I learn that maybe having a crush on every single person that is a bit comforting is not the smartest move? Or how to deal with rejection and all the negative emotions attached to it? Even if it's romantic transference, it's just feelings. Nothing inappropriate is happening, it's two adults talking about the fact that there's some erotic feelings and how to deal with that.

As long as the emotions are not acted out, it's okay for a client to experience transference, of whatever sort, and so is it for the therapist. It might indicate that there's something in their past which maybe they should talk about with somebody else. But take again me as an example, while I will probably always feel like people might abandon me, at least I have now learned that this is just in my head and that I don't need to voice this concern immediately. And if I was a therapist, then I'd not talk to my client about how I'm scared they might not come back, even if they trigger that feeling in me. And either I as a therapist could deal with these feelings myself, or if not or if I didn't know where the feelings come from, *then* it might be a good idea to start my own therapy. But that still doesn't mean there needs to be termination. Termination would only be necessary if the therapist felt that he could not perform his role anymore and couldn't maintain his boundaries. Which would be a much larger issue, but it's not something that is inherit to transference.

I think if whenever people bring up something like romantic feelings and there would only be termination after that, this would just stigmatize the whole experience and people would not talk about it anymore, creating much deeper issues than openly talking about what's happening. Boundaries can be maintained even with such disclosures and that way people won't just hide.

Finally, I'd like to say I'd also not consider it smart for a therapist to talk about counter-transference as soon as it happens. If it affects the relationship and there are deep issues, then maybe the therapist should address it, after having discussed it already in supervision. But otherwise, if it doesn't affect the client, then why should the therapist mention anything? That just makes it about themselves. If we again imagine me as a therapist, if a client said "I'm going to take a longer vacation and never text you or write an email", and then I'd go "oh, that triggers my fears of abandonment, you know, I had many bad experiences with that and it's very difficult for me", how would that help? Even worse, how would it help if I then told them to never come back? That would neither serve my own interests, nor the client's. If I can fully just deal with it on my own, be a bit sad after the announcement but still fully concentrate on the client for the rest of the session and afterwards not think about it too much either, then why would I need to bring this up? It will only take away focus from what the client is saying and will not have any positive effect for them.