Her comment about the difference in age shows she knows what you're talking about.

She’s not going to terminate. It’s a normal, expected part of therapy. It’s a sign of progress that you’ve developed these feelings for her, believe it or not. Therapy is tough and it needs to get very intimate to get at your issues adequately. If you can’t feel intimately about your T, there’s a problem.

She’s not going to hate you for it. It’s not an insult to her.

It’s normal, usual, expected. It most likely happened to her at some point with a T of her own. It’s happened to other patient’s of hers—she’s probably dealing with it with other patients right now.

With the age reference she was giving you a reason to understand that a relationship won't result from the situation. So she knows.

What she doesn’t know is how strong your feelings are or how vulnerable you feel.

If she’s good she’ll take the lead once you get enough syllables out of your mouth. In one way it was the hardest part of therapy to deal with it—and it went on forever—it didn’t get cleared up all at once.

Talk it about however you think is best, but if you’re having great problems talking about it directly—as I did—try talking about the way you feel about the situation. If you can’t talk about her directly, talk about the feelings and the fears and uncertainties you have. If you talk about your feelings “about” the topic you can let her know how important it is to you and how sensitive your feelings are. Get the ball rolling and let her know what you want her to do to carry forward on the issue.

I had problems making eye contact with my T about various things, and I think I went through several sessions making no eye contact at all while this issue was brought up because of how tough it was.

You’ve seen others, male and female, posting here about there dealing with this issue. You can get through this, and people here can help.

Tell her your fears about saying what you want to say. That’s crucial for her to know and for you to say.

Tell us how it goes.