Abstract
The relationship between a female client and a male therapist is fraught with many emotional possibilities and the feelings therapists experience towards their clients are an integral part of the jointly-created therapeutic encounter. However, a thoroughly bottom-up input of systematic, qualitatively-analysed data into a local theoretical exploration of male therapists’ feelings towards their female clients and how they are dealt with in therapy is still missing. Towards this end, seven male therapists were selected and interviewed, while the resulting data was analysed using the social constructionist version of Grounded Theory. Results indicated a pronounced presence of the erotic in the therapeutic relationship which resulted from genuine and/or counter-transferential feelings. Participants spoke both of a ‘shared’ and a ‘feared’ erotic, and the erotic taboo was further explored in light of their reflective and analytic use of self. The development of theoretical categories led to a transformational quality of the processed erotic which can prove beneficial for both therapeutic participants within the context of a mutual, transformational therapeutic process.