Do you sometimes feel attracted to your therapist of same sex?

I can sometimes feel attracted to my therapist even if it´s not that I would want to be in any kind of sexual situation with her. I'm not drawn to women (I´m a woman myself) in general but I can still feel a bit attracted to my T.


Now when it´s summer she has a couple of times wore t-shirts with some cleavage and when leaning forward as she sometimes does when we talk the obvious happens. Then "too much" is visible and as she sits close to me I see parts of her breasts and it´s not that I stare or would want to stare but it´s impossible to not see anything. I mean, I can´t begin to look at the wall instead of looking at her.

She looks good for her age, I can also feel a bit "attracted" to her hairstyle and her appearance in general. This can lead to me imagining her in sexual situations I see in a romantic movie, thinking like "that´s perhaps how my T is like in such a sexual situation".


My thoughts don´t go there when I meet with her but between sessions and I know they would easily fade if she did or said something that I didn´t like.


I really hope she doesn´t notice if I "by accident" look at her chest. I also sometimes look at her hands and her wedding ring, that´s a bit embarrassing as well.


Can anyone relate to this with a therapist of same sex?

Dear God no!
Hell. I'm not even attracted to myself in the mirror.

I often admire members of the same sex. Doesn't mean I am attracted to them. But If I see a girl with really fit thighs and *ss I definitely find my eyes drawn.
I just appreciate the female form.
Sometimes, although I am mainly straight, I occasionally find a woman sexually attractive but what makes her so can vary wildly.

As for finding my T attractive, good grief no. He is probably my ageish or young looking for his age. What could be considered attractive but ....eugh no.

It's really common. A lot of generally straight women here have written about feeling attracted to their female T's.

I'm more often attracted to women in general and was extremely disturbed by my attraction to my first T. I was young and had yet to acknowledge or accept my sexuality plus being attracted to a maternal figure felt incredibly uncomfortable. I have been intensely attracted to many subsequent maternal transference figures and sometimes felt disturbed by it while other times okay with it.

In general, I tend not to be strongly attracted to women whom I perceive to be straight and this was pivotal in my decision to work with my current T. Within the first few sessions I felt her to be smart, astute, gentle, soft-spoken, unassuming, nonjudgmental, not homophobic... and heterosexual AF. We are reasonably close in age (she's 10-12y older than me) plus she's blond/thin/calm and my thought was that I would not develop feelings of maternal longing toward her. That would have been a real coup but apparently that could not be avoided. Alas. Painful maternal attachments are my Achilles heel apparently.

This to say, having had the bewildering and deeply uncomfortable experience of feeling attracted to a T in the past, I went to great lengths to avoid it this time. So I get how uncomfortable it is and I get the weirdness of having sexual feelings for someone for whom you wouldn't ordinarily have them. Maybe it helps to know 1) it's really common 2) lots of people think that kind of sexual fluidity is a superpower?

Yeah I have this too. 🤫
My T is 12 years older than me and really pretty and well put together.
I have really bad eye contact issues so when she looks away I sort of have a look at her ( this sounds so wrong!) I look at her hands a lot too.
Ergh, hate the power she has over me. I had it a lot growing up too though, girl crushes.
I’m married to a man and quite happy in that department, but can appreciate a good looking/ sexy woman!

Yes! I'm a woman and I've been seeing my female T for 8 years. I've posted in the past about my physical attraction to her. I used to talk with her about my part who was "in love with her." She has a beautiful smile and pretty hair. I also noticed when she wore a top that showed her breasts. We discussed this in my sessions and she told me about sexual fluidity, and even if I could be bisexual. I don't think I am. I never wanted sex with my T but wanted comforting, so it got mixed up in mind, especially when she looks good to me.

My attraction to her has lessened through the years, though sometimes when she smiles and has her hair the way I like it, the feeling hits me and I have trouble concentrating in my session. But that's rare now because our relationship has changed. She feels like family to me now and I love her. It's more natural. I think my medical problems have something to do with it too. It doesn't matter what T looks like; I just need her caring and support.

Did you ever discuss your attraction with your T? It's just like any other topic though I know it's embarrassing. It could be helpful. Otherwise, try to just accept that it's normal and enjoy the feelings!

Yes, but I'm a bisexual woman.

In the clinical literature, erotic transference between a heterosexual person and their same sex therapist can happen.

There's also an important difference between finding someone attractive and being sexually attracted to them.

I've discussed my feelings with my former and current therapist.

Thanks. Yes, it´s a comfort in knowing that many clients experience this and I also remember my T saying that it´s not unusual for a client to fall in love or feel love for a therapist.


I´ve known about this for several years and now when I experience this, I already did to some extent with another T, it´s not so much about feeling sexually attracted to her. Perhaps there´s a fine line between attraction in general and attraction that´s sexual.


For me I think it´s more of seeing something "I shouldn´t see" when my T accidently shows "too much", not that I by that want to be with her in a sexual situation. Also, this hasn´t to do with my sexuality outside therapy, I mean I don´t think I´m bisexual or gay even if I find women nice looking.


In therapy I think I connect her showing "too much" (cleavage) to her life outside and how she acts in sexual situations with her husband, not that I fantasize of doing anything sexual with her.

Thanks for sharing. When you mentioned this to your T, she interpreted it as you could perhaps be bisexual?


I think the core in this is that the care and comfort that T gives is given to "the little child" within us and some of it reaches that child but our adult selves easily connect that to something that is given by a partner. I now mean a close hug or holding hands, both happen as a kind of care in a therapeutic situation (if your T gives hugs and holds your hand) but it can also awaken attraction.

Did your attraction fade by itself or have you regularly talked with your T about it?


I don´t feel this so strongly so I feel the need to bring it up, if it begins to disturb the sessions I would. I don´t want her to withdraw from kind gestures ,which has nothing to do with creating attraction, because she thinks I see this as a problem.


Even if it can be a bit hard sometimes to think about this I also see it as something positive that has happened in our therapy process.

My t is 25 years older than me and completely straight. I have had relationships with both men and women and sometimes when I look at my t she takes my breath away.
She often wears very revealing tops and very elegant dresses.
Sometimes I fantasise about my t. We have talked about these fantasies- y finds them amusing and likes hearing about them. She always welcomes anything to do with the relationship.
Sometimes when t laughs and I don’t mean in an unkind or cruel way, she laughs at my imagination and the situations I put us both in, I talked about my fantasies about my ex t too and t nearly fell off her chair laughing. I got very upset and t explained she was not laughing at me just the situation.
Anyway, I think it’s completely normal for both gay and straight women to fantasise about their t because it’s a safe relationship, one that will never happen so we can imagine all sorts.

Yes, definitely, but hey I'm bisexual although married to a man at the moment.

Talking privately and having to look into the eyes of a very attractive person for some time can contribute I guess.

I'm about to stop going to therapy though , not entirely because of the therapist, mostly because I do not seem to be making any more progress with this type of therapy.

Meeee. I have a little crush on mine. It's nothing major and I'm in a happy relationship but... She's attractive. maybe it's the bond and the way you tell them so much I dunno.

Mind you I do identify as being bisexual so it's not a huge surprise for me to find a woman attractive

Yes I find my female T very attractive. She's older and lesbian, married. I'm telling myself that I've formed a bond with her and it's nice when someone is intently listening and responding (I know that it's their job to, it's what they're getting paid for) and I contribute my attraction to that. Even though I find her attractive despite this fact.

I have never felt sexually attracted to a therapist of my sex, but I have developed a strong affection for a female therapist. I'll admit that the reason is that I deeply admire her (respect her intelligence and warmth), and feel equally liked by her. Also, she looks (hair, smile, even face) and in many ways acts a lot like my mother who died 13 years ago. She is even about the same age that mother would be, if she was still alive. I told her all of this, and she seemed touched because I've told her how sweet and kind of a mother I had. I told her that I didn't find her to be "motherly", though. I don't. I have, however, had female therapists that were "motherly" towards me. One was "motherly" in a sweet way, and another was "motherly" in a mean and dysfunctional way. Actually, the other was more like my grandmother, whom my siblings and I never liked.

I read about love in therapy and some therapists openly say they "love" their clients and that there has to be "love" or else there is no therapy. I strongly believe in that as the love isn´t the same kind of love as for a child or a partner but a special love that is "therapeutic love". It´s not acted upon but is still there through the bond, through an occasional hug and kind words.

The attraction I think for me has to do with knowing she has several sides I won´t see, like her being intimate with her husband or when she cries over something. Instinctively I would want to be there for her (not in a sexual way) like getting her a warm sweater when it´s cold outside or bring her some pain killers when she has a headache.


I think feeling protective of her is part of the attraction, perhaps someone else has felt this way.

In the early years of my therapy, I wanted to take care of my T, comfort her if she was hurt or sick. She once said, "I can take care of myself." I felt hurt and rejected, so then we talked about that, a lot. Have you told your T that you want to take care of her or comfort her? If you did, what was her response? If not, why not?

I've felt protective of my T before. In my particular case it doesn't feel like part of an attraction, more like a response to the inherently unequal roles in the T-patient relationship (it feels weird to be in an emotionally intimate relationship without providing any care whatsoever--that's totally different from every other relationship I've ever been in).

For context, T and I are both female and she's ~10 years older than I am. I have no idea what her sexual preferences might be; I'm like a 2 on the Kinsey scale as far as sexual attraction is concerned but I've never been romantically interested in a woman. I remember at the beginning of us working together I was a little afraid I might develop a crush on her because she's sort of stupidly pretty/smart/compassionate but that didn't end up happening. (The fear wasn't because she's a woman--I would be okay with that, if a little surprised, if that happened in real life. The fear was because having a crush on someone who is 100% unavailable hurts like hell, and I have a history of developing God-awful crushes on unavailable mentor-like figures. It's the *worst*)

This thread about how people handle feeling compassion for their Ts might be interesting to you?