Stages of erotic transference - when a therapist has feelings for the client.

  • Eros - can be a bridge leading to relational depth.
  • Sexual misconduct - is physical contact.

  1. 'Falling' for the client usually occurs during the first six sessions
  2. This corresponds to the concept of Eros as a desire for connection, an attempt to bridge the gap between client and therapist via non-verbal intuition and sensing. The traditional understanding is that this process is similar to the attachment and bonding of parent and child.
  3. The seed of the connection may be a similar trauma in the past (projective identification/ kinship) or the client's vulnerability and the therapist's desire to nurture.
  4. If the therapist can't reconcile their public and and private self, feeling that adult sexuality has no place within their self concept as a therapist, then sexual feelings are interpreted by the therapist as something going wrong in therapy; there is a phobic dread, Eros is interpreted as a moral failure, a situation that might get our of control.
  5. The therapist may blame the client...
From research by Dr. Mason Neely

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