Sexual Feelings in Psychotherapy: Explorations for Therapists and Therapists-in-training

This book presents research, theory and practical guidance about therapists' sexual feelings and their responses to patients' sexual feelings, issues and behaviour. It examines common reactions that sexual feelings may evoke in therapists and clues to therapists' unacknowledged sexual feelings. The authors discuss the historical resistance within the profession to understanding and acknowledging these feelings and responses, and they offer a variety of educational approaches that foster self-exploration and self-discovery, and that focus on the effects of contextual factors (e.g. gender, age, sexual orientation) on the experience of sexual feelings. The approach taken by the authors allows both seasoned therapists and novice therapists or therapists-in-training to sensitise themselves to a myriad of ethical and therapeutic issues. Their approach is always informed by the guiding principle that sexual expression between therapist and patient is countertherapeutic and never appropriate.