Why Can’t I Have Sex with My Therapist?

A good, experienced therapist won’t be shocked or appalled to find out you feel this way. They might even be expecting it. Either way, they’ll know exactly what to do.

Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you’re feeling—that won’t be to actually have sex with you. Having sex with clients is harmful, destructive, and nearly universally forbidden. It’s against every ethical code therapists follow. In some states, it’s illegal.

But even if the act would be wrong, that doesn’t mean the feeling or the desire is wrong. In fact, it comes from a surprisingly pure place. The emotional core of your longing is something your therapist wants to help you understand. And the way you do that is the way you might expect by now: you talk about it.

Your therapist’s job is to help you understand the feeling behind the fantasy. If you lean into it with curiosity instead of pushing it away in shame, it can teach you a lot about yourself. It can help you understand how you want to connect to others and show you what you’re missing—and what you need—in your other relationships.

We know that among all the potentially awkward conversations you can have with your therapist, telling them you’ve been thinking about them that way might be the most awkward of all. But it’s usually worth having that conversation.

It can backfire if your therapist is unethical, but there are ways you can spot bad therapists before you go there. One of biggest signs of a bad therapist is you feel like you can’t trust them—with this or any other sensitive information.

There are a few unfortunate ways a therapist might not respond well to this. While an unethical therapist might respond with interest in pursuing a sexual relationship, an inexperienced therapist might panic and freak out and not know what to do. They might shut you down in a way that can feel hurtful or rejecting or even say they can’t keep working with you.

If this happens, it’s not your fault or a sign that what you’ve shared is wrong. It’s just that your therapist isn’t ready. They might be more worried about making a mistake than thinking about how this could help you. Experienced, ethical therapists understand that the therapy relationship naturally evokes these kinds of feelings and that there’s value in exploring them.

There are many reasons you might feel attracted to your therapist. They might be your type or they might simply be an attractive person. You might click with them in an easy, natural way. There might be chemistry between you.

But most of the time, the reason you feel this way is because of what you experience with them in the therapy room.

Most romantic fantasies are of finding someone who loves you for who you truly are. You dream of being seen and known by someone who doesn’t judge or reject you, someone who sees you as beautiful and worthy no matter how awkward or ashamed you feel.

Then you get this total, loving attention from your therapist and dream that maybe you could have it all the time. You could live the fantasy, if only your therapist could become your lover.

There are other reasons therapy can make you feel this way, too.

It’s natural to get an erotic charge from breaking taboos, and you’re constantly breaking taboos in therapy. Expressing yourself in ways you normally don’t and telling secrets you’ve never told before can create a charged atmosphere.

Think about it: how many sexy scenes in shows and movies begin with someone locking eyes with someone else and saying something suggestive? It’s that sense of invitation that sets off the charge: I’m telling you something I’m not supposed to.

And then in how many other situations besides sex and therapy does another person you’re alone with lean in and ask, “And how does that make you feel?”

Let’s face it: therapy can be kind of hot.

This is why so many people feel attracted to their therapist or have sexual fantasies about them.

It doesn’t always happen, and it doesn’t need to happen, but when it does, it’s totally natural. It’s a development of the intimacy of the therapy relationship. Handled well, exploring these feelings can even help you go deeper in your healing journey and have breakthroughs in therapy.

Yes, it’s true: it’s actually good to want to have sex with your therapist. It’s bad to actually have sex with them—bad in a potentially life-altering way—but it’s good to have the desire.

The first reason is that it’s good to have desire, period. Therapy is one of the few places you can acknowledge and talk about this hidden truth.

Our culture is hung up about it, and we get a lot of mixed messages about sexual desire and whether we should have it. But while not everyone needs sex or sexual desire to be happy, make no bones about it—it’s healthy to want sex.

And erotic energy fuels more than just relationships.

It drives ambition, creativity, and the pursuit of many of the pleasures that make life worth living. The desire to connect with others and feel good leads us to many of the best experiences in our lives.

The energy of wanting can get us in trouble, but it’s also what keeps us going. Part of what defines depression is that it makes it difficult (if not impossible) to experience desire or pleasure. It’s as if the energy of life has just gone.

The thing that breaks through and makes us want things again is the thing that brings us back to life.

And sometimes that thing is a therapist.

Another reason it’s a good sign to want to have sex with your therapist is it shows that your relationship has gotten stronger.

It shows that you trust and feel close to your therapist, that you feel connected to them, and that you feel seen, held, and understood by them. Feeling attracted to your therapist shows that you’ve found someone you have chemistry with and want to open up to.

All of those feelings are at the center of the healing that therapy can do. And if you can avoid the pitfall of acting on them, they can help you open up and do amazing work with your therapist.

The first (and most important) thing to do with these feelings is to acknowledge them to yourself—without shame or guilt. It’s normal and okay to feel this way.

The next thing to do is to explore and reflect on these feelings on your own. Whether you journal, talk it out with a trusted friend, or simply think it out in the shower, you can make progress on understanding these feelings before you ever bring them up with your therapist.

Most of the time, when these feelings come up in therapy, it’s because you feel safe, heard, cared for, and even loved. In that case, it’s probably safe to tell your therapist how you feel.

However, there are a few unethical therapists out there who sexually pursue clients and who might intentionally try to trigger these feelings in you. They may drop hints or test the waters to see if you’re open to having sex with them. This is a huge red flag.

Even if you’re interested, we strongly recommend walking away from a therapist who tells you they want to have sex with you, or even one who can’t seem to stop dropping hints or saying suggestive things to you.

If, after some self-reflection, you conclude that what’s making you feel this way is something positive about your relationship with your therapist—like the warmth and connection you feel when you’re with them—it’s probably safe to talk to your therapist about it.

A good, ethical therapist will understand that this is happening because of the nature of therapy and that it’s not about them. They will see their job as leading you deeper into these feelings and helping you figure out what they’re showing you about what you want and need in your intimate relationships.

They will understand this is delicate work and take pains to make you feel safe. They will make it clear what their boundaries are and that these feelings, while normal and valid, should not be acted upon.

Yes, it’s deeply vulnerable and embarrassing to confess an attraction to someone who may not feel the same way as you and who can’t ethically reciprocate even if they do.

It can seem like it would be soul-crushing to put your tender feelings on the dissection table to coldly analyze them with the person you wish was telling you they feel the same way.

But the weird thing about it is that somehow, it isn’t soul-crushing.

It will feel strange at first, but once you get used to it, you’ll be surprised how good it feels to talk about feelings instead of acting on them. It’s liberating. As you talk about these tender feelings with someone who doesn’t judge or reject them, the shame starts to melt away. You find peace with them.

Unfortunately, it’s not always safe to tell your therapist that you’re attracted to them. While most therapists are ethical, there are a few unethical therapists who take advantage of the situation and have sex with clients.

While, fortunately, these therapists are rare, it’s less rare to have an inexperienced therapist who is so unnerved by the ethical implications of talking about your sexual attraction to them that they freak out and shut down the discussion. They may even feel uncomfortable enough that they say they need to refer you to another therapist to avoid even a hint of impropriety.

Just know that if this happens, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or that you did anything wrong. It just means that your therapist made a judgement call that they can’t professionally deal with this and want to send you on to someone else who hopefully can work with whatever you bring up with them.

As long as you’re careful, and walk away if things get weird, it’s worth telling your therapist. Whatever your therapist does or says will give you important information. You’ll either be able to proceed into some potentially powerful work with them, or you’ll know that it’s time to find another therapist.

Having sex with your therapist can seem like a dream—or at least a fantasy—come true, but it isn’t. It’s a nightmare that never ends well.

The rare clients who aren’t deeply harmed by it aren’t fulfilled by it, either. At best, they’re disappointed with how much it didn’t live up to the fantasy. And it always ends the work they are able to do in therapy with that therapist.

Most of the time, the outcome is even worse. It can cause a client to lose faith in therapy altogether and be unable to continue the work they’ve been doing with any therapist.

A therapist has power over you.

That can feel sexy, but the result is that as soon as you step outside of the therapy room, where the boundaries of therapy protect you and balance out the power dynamic, the relationship is always on their terms.

The therapist is in control of how much you ever know about them and how much they ever let you in to their life. They also know how to wound and manipulate you.

And people who are attracted to having sex with someone they have that much power over usually aren’t shy about using that power to hurt or control the other person.

That said, not all therapists who have sex with clients have predatory or sociopathic personalities.

There are therapists who make well-meaning mistakes—who simply fall in love, or who, for emotional reasons hidden from themselves, believe in this one special case, the thing they’ve spent their entire career hearing is the worst thing they could possibly do is actually fine, or even beneficial.

But even then, it will hurt you. It will hurt you both. No matter how well-meaning you or your therapist might be, sex violates the therapy relationship and leaves one or both of you feeling violated, too.

The funny thing about these adult thoughts and feelings you’re having is that often, when you’re having them about a therapist, they’re coming from a vulnerable, childlike place.

They may begin as a message from your inner child that you want to be held and nurtured by your therapist, but then that message gets run through the relay of your adult brain, which translates that childlike desire to merge with a parental figure into a desire for sex.

And then, when you have sex, your inner child is not fulfilled—instead, they experience it as a betrayal. The relationship is no longer about you and your needs, and it can leave you feeling orphaned.

The therapist is no longer the parent surrogate who made you feel so seen and loved. They are now just another person caught in the web of their own desires. You lose the person they were to you when they were your therapist—and it can feel just as devastating as losing, or losing trust in, a parent.

The therapy relationship can only function the way it does when all those rules and boundaries are in place—when nothing else is allowed to interfere or intrude. As soon as they’re gone, you lose the special connection that made you feel this way in the first place.

The aftermath hurts your heart so much that it can make it hard to ever go back to therapy again. This is the worst-case scenario—letting the harm a bad therapist did to you cause you to lose the potentially life-changing healing that good therapy could have given you.

Just like it’s normal for clients to sometimes be attracted to therapists, it’s normal for therapists to sometimes be attracted to clients.

Yes, that’s right—your therapist might be feeling that way about you, too.

However, a good therapist interrogates that feeling the same way that we’ve encouraged you to interrogate yours. They don’t take it as a sign they should be with you. They don’t act on it.

Instead, they try to figure out what’s making them feel this way.

And usually, it’s something that’s happening in therapy.

An experienced therapist won’t be shocked or afraid they feel this way, but they’ll want to deal with it the right way instead of jeopardizing your well-being and their career.

That said, not all therapists are good therapists, and not all therapists are experienced therapists. There are therapists who will pursue their attraction instead of interrogating it.

When that happens, it’s important to know the signs.

It’s possible for a well-meaning therapist who’s trying to keep their personal feelings under wraps to let something slip.

But a good, ethical therapist will quickly and clearly re-establish the therapeutic boundaries and explain why any attraction—yours or theirs—can’t be acted upon.

If a therapist pursues you or tries to persuade you to have sex with them, the best thing you can do is walk away.

Your therapist knows they are violating the ethical code they follow and are risking losing their license and their career. In other words, they know they’re being bad and that what they’re trying to do could hurt you both.

This is more than a red flag—it’s a flashing neon sign this therapist is bad news and that you should immediately stop seeing them.

If you’ve already had sex with a current or past therapist, don’t blame yourself or feel guilty. Whatever happened wasn’t your fault. The therapist is the one with the power in the relationship and it was their responsibility to prevent this from happening.

That’s true even if you were the one who came on to your therapist. A good therapist would have gently resisted and rebuffed you and explained why that can’t happen.

They would have tried to help you understand that there’s nothing wrong with your feelings, but there are reasons not to act on them—and that it would be much more fruitful and healing to explore them in therapy.

It’s natural to dream about taking the healing intimacy of therapy home by becoming lovers with your therapist, but it just doesn’t work.

As soon as you try to take the therapy relationship outside of the therapy room, it withers and dies like a delicate plant that can only grow inside the terrarium you just removed it from.

Most clients experience it as a violation. The tender place this desire came from is trampled and sullied. This not only can cause its own trauma, but it can also make you feel like everything that happened in therapy was a lie.

But what happens in therapy is real. The real human relationship you have with your therapist is the beating heart of therapy. It’s what makes it work. The closeness and caring you and your therapist feel for one another are genuine, a gift—and something you can only experience in therapy.

This is why it’s worth resisting the urge to act on the feelings. You can learn—and grow–a lot by sitting with your frustration.

When you let therapy be what it is, it can be so much more than you ever dreamed it could be. When you resist the urge to act on your feelings for your therapist, you can experience something profound. You can be close with them in a way that wouldn’t be possible any other way.

And as therapy starts to work, you’ll find that you can take it home, after all, by using the growth you’re experiencing to build the fulfilling relationships you want in your life outside of therapy. You can live the dream, after all—not with your therapist, but with the right person that you’re now finally ready to meet.