I am going to be very blunt here and say that I'm baffled at the lack of insight about the therapeutic process in this thread. Every therapist worth their salt understands the value of transference in therapy. It is THE single most fruitful occurrence that can happen to unlock the very reasons the client came to therapy in the first place.
I'm going to be equally blunt. Many therapeutic modalities don't work with transference at all. So, therapeutic process can look very different if you consider the interactions from a person centred, humanistic or TA point of view, much less from the perspective of a more annualised therapeutic modality.
You're looking at this from a psychodynamic perspective which is but one of many ways to see it. Clients who have been sexually abused often come with very skewed thinking about their own and others sexuality and often need very clear statements about sex not being part of a therapeutic relationship and for the T to hold that boundary clearly and explicitly, without ambiguity.
The circular process you describe can be helpful but can equally feel like game playing, teasing or grooming depending on the client, their history and their needs. It can recreate the dynamic present in the original abuse and create confusion about the therapeutic process. It's the therapist role to fit their therapy to the client's needs rather than to exercise their art at the client's expense.
In this situation this client thinks sex with their T could be therapeutic and recognises their issues around sex and power - a good T would respond to this with clarity and compassion. There may be a time for circular conversation but that's effective once the safety of the therapeutic frame is established (e.g. No I wouldn't have sex with you, let's talk about how it feels for you to know that, what you hoped sex with me might give you, how seductive it is to have someone fully focused on your needs etc). Without safety, "what would be in it for you, that would be very selfish of me" is mental masturbation and arguably antitherapeutic.
Clients who've experienced someone crossing their boundaries, where sex becomes commodified or expected in some way, where messages about sex are ambiguous, veiled in game playing and where emotional blackmail and manipulation are the norm need plain, open communication about the place of sex in the therapeutic relationship precisely because of the way they've been socially conditioned to think about their sexuality.
Working with trauma means establishing and reestablishing safety at every point, working with the client at their pace, in service of their needs from their frame of reference. As long as the client thinks sex *might* be a possibility, could be therapeutic, may be required of them in some way, safety isn't present.
