So what would be the difference with a female with a male T?
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That would completely depend on the type of transference and previous issues the person had.
For someone whose mother was abusive / absent and did not have their needs meet via their mother grown up, then it is more liiley they would experience transference with a female figure (be it a T, friend, female lover etc). If the person felt neglected by a father figure, and / or abused by a male, then the dynamics with a male T would make transference more likely in that scenario.
I don't think the point is to 'avoid' it - if you know you might end up having transference feelings for a female T, then seeing a male T and not having transference experience would still mean you potentially have a lot of unresolved issues despite all the therapy with the male T. I think its part of the reason we sometimes need to change Ts - we do work with on,e get so fr, then find changing is the best thing, so we can continue on with another T, and explore different issues.
Erotic transference can happen with a male or female T - regardless of sexual orientation. Again, that depends on the issues / pevious experiences a person has if it will happen or not. A male client might develop erotic transference for a male T, even if that male client is not gay, never has been nor ever will be. Same with female clients and female Ts - regardless of if you are lesbian or not. Why? because erotic transference is not about sex, it's about power and need. How the 'sexual' part comes into it is instead of fearing the other person and the power they have over us (face it, Ts do had power over us, even though most won't use it against us, it is still there!), we create in our minds, a fantasy where we have power over them - to have them 'fall' for us, or to 'have sex' with us, demonstrates we have had enough poet to 'make them' break very strong professional boundaries. We have the power to have them 'weak at the knees', wanting us'. While many people fantasize about sexual relationships with a T, we know it is purely fantasy and would be MORTIFIED if it actually happened. Of course, there are some exceptions to this - some people totally believe what they feel is 'real' and 'reciprocated' and spend all their time and energy trying to seduce their T, because they do not see it as transference, but as 'real'.
Even if a female had never been abused by a T, had a positive relationship with her father etc, she could still develop erotic transference for a male (or female) T.
The key things is - the feelings we put onto a therapist are transference. A good T will remain a 'blank slate' - not divulge anything about themselves or their home / personal lives. It's a part of good therapy, in that the more a 'blank slate' they are, the more likely our relationship and feelings towards them, will more accurately reflect our deepest issues and the things we need most to heal from.
One sample being, if you had a female T for whom you had feelings of her wanting to 'mother you' - that is more likely to come up as an issue if you didn't know she did not have her own children or had no desire to ever be a mother. Or, at the outset your male T said they were gay and in a long term relationship with their male partner - it wouldn't necessarily stop transference towards him and you wanting him to be your husband, but it might make the transference less powerful than it might have otherwise been.
