Okay, I'm getting ready to be walked all over for this but there is a running current in many threads here that is uncomfortable and I can no longer ignore. This has to be said.

It is NEVER okay to have a relationship with your psychiatrist or therapist. And, to entertain such an idea is troublesome at best. My suggestion is to seek other help.

[LesFleursDuMal]

Well said.

[BayBrony]

I'm assuming you mean a romantic/sexual relationship??

[atisketatasket]

I don't think anyone's been suggesting that it is okay.

Most of the times I see that theme, it's much more wishfulness than advocacy.

[LonesomeTonight]

Having feelings for a T or p-doc is different than having an actual relationship. If a line is crossed, that's on the professional (T or p-doc), not the client.

That being said, it's quite common to have feelings of some type for a T, whether erotic/romantic or more maternal/paternal. Assuming the T is ethical--and feels OK discussing it--talking about such feelings can be beneficial to therapy because they're often rooted in something a client was missing in childhood and/or is currently missing in their adult life. Talking it through with a T can help unlock those needs, which the client may not have been even aware of until the feelings for the T came about.

That's definitely been my personal experience, having had both erotic/romantic and paternal transference (generally at different times) for my marriage counselor. I'm lucky in that he's both very ethical and also comfortable discussing the topic with me (and yes, my husband is aware, and we've discussed it in session). The erotic part helped me realize some of what I was missing in my marriage--empathy, someone who really listened and seemed to understand me, etc.--and realizing those needs were there helped me and our marriage (since then H knew what I was looking for). There's still a long way to go, and H is never going to be the empathic, sensitive, good listener that MC is, not just because of personality, but also because he sees me for more than an hour a week. Plus I was projecting a lot onto MC and idealizing him, and his talking about, say, what he's really like as a husband and father has helped the transference fade to some extent.

Again, as long as a T is ethical (that's really important) and comfortable discussing the feelings, they can be beneficial. Certainly painful at times (as I learned), but ultimately, for the most part, lead to some helpful revelations and understandings about oneself. YMMV, of course...

[RedSun]

Originally Posted by atisketatasket

I don't think anyone's been suggesting that it is okay.

Most of the times I see that theme, it's much more wishfulness than advocacy.

I agree, I don't think hardly anyone on here actually thinks it's okay.

Entertaining ideas about a sexual/romantic relationship with T, having erotic transference, is inevitable for some of us, and working through it (with a boundaried, ethical T of course) is a big and helpful part of the journey.

[stopdog]

The therapist is never supposed to act upon it (at least not in any semi-legitimate therapy types I have ever read about). But the idea a client might have feelings or desires or even tell the therapist about it is not unusual at all. In some schools of thought such a thing is expected even, and something the therapist has (as much as they are in any fashion) been trained to deal with. Clients have all sorts of feelings about therapists that are the thing of therapy as far as some types of therapy go. The first one I see even once asked if I was attracted to her, and when I spontaneously went "ack no" and recoiled in horror - she got all huffy and offended - not because she was coming on to me (I did not read it as a come on) but because she expected clients to get crushes on her.
Therapy is, in my opinion, exactly the place it is supposed to be safe to explore any idea.