I never had a therapist even use the word "transference" during my therapy. I think I am grateful for that.

I honestly didn't even know what it was until I came to this forum - and I'm fairly sure not everyone here even agrees on the definition to start with.

I'm pretty certain transference for my therapist was not an issue. What I do realize is that I have had reactions to people in my life (not my therapists) that were definitely responses connected to my personal history. My therapists helped me recognize when my reactions were out of proportion to the current event and see the connection to my history so that I could work through that and get to a place where I don't default to that reaction. I think that is about as close to working on "transference" as we got, and again, the term was not used.

I had close relationships with my three therapists. Close, affectionate, yet very professional relationships. I have stayed friends with them for decades beyond my therapy. That's just relationship. That isn't transference. Not all connection between a therapist and a client has to be hyper-analyzed as "transference"; sometimes we just get along well and actually care without huge "issues" surrounding those relationships.

I'm not real big into the "therapy is all about the relationship between the client and the therapist" thing. That certainly has never been my experience. While I had close and positive relationships with my therapists, my therapy was about me and about my needs, issues, history; and the goal for me was to get to that place where I didn't need therapy to live a contented, emotionally stable life. I got there. And without session after session focused on the therapist/client relationship. It was rarely part of the discussion.