A moment where you are completely honest with each other; I felt like it was a bit of a relief, it felt like it was really, like a genuine moment.

Honesty aids recognition

This sub-theme highlights how the participants felt that honesty around themselves, clients and therapeutic relationships led them to recognize their sexual feelings. Once the feelings were recognized, there was a need to explore them. Mark described his attempts to unpick his sexual feelings when a client had a resemblance to a former partner. He said, ‘This is not the person I had a relationship with 15 years ago, it’s a different person. You always have to acknowledge that’.

So Mark acknowledged his sexual feelings in relation to his client and separated them from his past relationship.

Honesty with the self

This theme addresses the participants’ awareness of their feelings and their exploration as to why these feelings occurred. Sarah gives an example of this. She remembers her thoughts during a session:

Sarah demonstrates that confusion can occur when exploring where the sexual feelings originate from. If the feelings are from the therapist, they take on a different meaning than erotic countertransferential feelings. One’s own feelings inform the therapist about themselves, whereas the transferential feelings are informative about the client’s process. In this extract, Sarah attempts to explain why she had these sexual feelings:

Sarah suggested it is useful to consider the reason for sexual feelings occurring in a therapeutic relationship. She felt her sexual feelings were related to a sense of personal loneliness, suggesting sexual feelings can occur when there is something ‘lacking’ in a person’s life. She stated ‘you have to go and deal with it’ indicating that a therapist’s feelings is something the therapist needs to deal with and that having sexual feelings in the therapeutic relationship is problematic.

Henry was curious about the intensity of his sexual feelings for his client, making him question whether he was having a midlife crisis. He said, ‘So feeling this deeply about a client in this sexually charged way is new for me […] Am I having a midlife crisis?’

Reflection can lead to a consideration of negative, worrying possibilities, but this is not all. Julia also considered that the sexual feelings were due to her vulnerability and highlighted that the client’s vulnerability ‘touched’ something in her. Julia’s use of words, such as ‘touch’, also demonstrated the intimacy in the relationship. She said:

Julia felt that the client ‘was triggering’ her vulnerability, suggesting that her sexual feelings developed from the relationship with her client, not solely from her personal issues.

A consequence of the therapists’ being honest with the self is that it is felt to lead to a deeper understanding of the countertransferential element of the feelings. Mark and Henry explored the countertransferential aspect of the therapeutic relationship to understand their feelings in greater depth: Henry said:

Mark similarly felt that his feelings towards a client were related to a past romantic relationship. ‘So these qualities reminded me of […] my past girlfriend […] this definitely initiated positive transference in terms of how I saw the client’.

In summary, the therapists were aware of their sexual feelings and felt it important to explore whether these feelings were transferential or feelings originating in their personal histories. The participants who ‘owned’ their sexual feelings felt there was a reason for their feelings and that they were due to something lacking in their lives.

Honesty with the other

As well as these therapists’ explorations of their own sexual feelings, they formulated and explored the client’s presentation in an attempt to understand the feelings. Therapists’ reflections of their work with clients help in understanding their own sexual feelings:

Julia understood that it was ‘an enormous effort’ for the client to form a relationship. Thus, part of her attraction was that she felt privileged that the client had chosen her to ‘attach’ himself to. She said, ‘On my part it made me feel a bit special because you know, I felt quite privileged. It brought out some feelings in myself as well as towards him’.

Mark understood his client to be misunderstood. He said:

Thus, Mark’s sexual feelings could also have derived from a need to be the one to understand the client.

When trying to understand the client’s possible influence on these feelings, Sarah discussed how clients with a history of sexual abuse tend to push boundaries within the therapeutic relationship, which can lead to sexual feelings developing in the relationship:

Sarah is invoking the idea that when one has sexual feelings for a client it is possible that the client is ‘acting out’ his or her issues with the therapist. This also warrants consideration.

The theme honesty aids recognition has highlighted how therapists’ honest reflection can lead to a recognition and understanding of both therapists’ and clients’ feelings.

As seen in Figure 14.1, once therapists are open to themselves about the presence of sexual feelings and consider what meaning they might have, the next theme is relevant. This was termed ‘consider voicing or denying sexual feelings’. This theme addresses how therapists think about sexual feelings and self-disclosure. Some therapists discussed how they made their decision to disclose their feelings. While the option of not speaking about them was possible, therapists felt obligated to be, as they saw it, honest and genuine with their clients, that the idea of not being honest could damage the therapeutic relationship. Julia states:

There are a few ideas to note in this extract. Firstly, Julia felt obliged to express her feelings; she had to be honest. To deny her feelings would feel like a rejection. Secondly, Julia views the interaction as ‘one human being who asked another human being’. The labels of ‘therapist’ and ‘client’ are not significant, creating a more intimate interaction. Similarly as follows, Sarah indicates that she is almost obliged to disclose her feelings as she acknowledges that she is a very special person in (the patient’s) life:

The consequences (such as the possible breakdown of the therapeutic relationship or the rejection of the patient) of not being honest appear to be key in deciding to disclose sexual feelings to clients. When deciding whether to self-disclose or not, the therapists felt an obligation to the client or themselves to be honest and that to deny feelings could risk, or be, an act of rejection. Therefore, it was important not to deny their feelings.

The act of honesty

As shown in Figure 14.1, this theme is how the movement is made from the decision-making process to an act of self-disclosure. Julia felt a sense of relief:

Julia illustrates the struggle inherent in therapists containing feelings and the difficulty in deciding the appropriateness of self-disclosure. Julia found the process difficult and experienced the self-disclosure as positive (‘genuine’). Sarah said, ‘My take is to be honest and then to work with, […] I’ll see on their faces their reaction’.

Sarah found she could work through the client’s response; thus, it felt safe to disclose. Thus, the act of being honest was a relief and was understood to be the most appropriate decision. The desire for the act of honesty is an initial stage in the process of disclosing and the therapist can take the opportunity to explore the impact of the self-disclosure with the client.

Self-disclosure of sexual feelings is experienced as a process extending beyond the verbal – and this leads to the final sub-theme, self-disclosure as an intervention. Participants speculated as to how their self-disclosure impacted on the client, the relationship and the process of therapy. Mark viewed his self-disclosure positively. He said, ‘It had a positive impact not only for this session but generally for the working alliance as well’. Mark stated that he ‘would do it for any other client’, illustrating that it is not something exclusive to this client. He viewed self-disclosure as a therapeutic ‘tool’. Julia felt that the disclosure could be healing to the client: ‘He felt he could actually be liked and be loved if he showed people who he truly was’.

Sarah used her self-disclosure and relationship as an intervention ‘to show him you can have an attraction [but] you don’t have to act on it, if it’s not appropriate. He told me that it was really, really significant the work he had done with me’. Sarah adds that the therapist should only use self-disclosures to help the client:

Related posts:

Acknowledgements I: Relational Perspectives on Sexual Attraction in Therapy The Role of Psychological Proximity and Sexual Feelings in Negotiating Relatedness in the Consulting Room: A Phenomenological Perspective An Acceptance Commitment Therapy Approach to Sexual Attraction Sexual Attraction in Conjoint Couple Therapy Index

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