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Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 224 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 178-190).

Aims: This study explores trainee counselling psychologists’ erotic feelings towards their clients and their responses to those feelings. The influences that help shape trainees’ reactions as well as the support systems they utilize to deal with the erotic are examined.︣Design: The participants’ narratives were analysed using Smith’s (1995) Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.︣Procedure: The data were collected in semi-structured interviews with six trainee counselling psychologists who were attracted towards a client at least on one occasion.︣Results: A total of 29 themes were deemed of particular importance and relevance to the topic under investigation. The emergent themes were organized into 3 master themes: (i) attributes of erotic attraction; (ii) impact or erotic attraction; (iii) management of erotic attraction.︣Conclusions: The results of this study emphasize the need for increased awareness, comprehensive training and systematic research on matters of the erotic within therapeutic encounters. Erotic attraction seemed to have a profound impact on the participants’ intrapersonal and interpersonal being as it touched upon their feelings, thoughts, personal identity, professional identity, everydayness, and clinical work. The majority of trainees believed that their inability to deal with their attraction appropriately had a marked negative impact upon therapeutic relationship, process, and outcome. All participants considered their experience, however, a major learning point as it allowed them to an extent to redefine their intentions, motives, and expectations as professionals and human beings. All participants used supervision, personal therapy, peer consultation, literature, and theoretical constructs to process and understand their attraction with varying degrees of success. Training programs and clinical placements seem to contribute to mismanagement of attraction by failing to lift the taboo off the erotic, by neglecting to address these issues explicitly in their curriculum, and by nurturing unrealistically high standards of conducting therapy. This study suggests that the erotic has an ontological and ontic significance which could be fully explored by adopting an existential counselling psychology paradigm or by adding an element of existential observation and understanding to any other approach.

Therapist-client sexual involvement has been shown to have damaging effects on clients, therapists and the mental health professions. As sexual attraction necessarily precedes sexual involvement, the incidence, experience and management of sexual attraction to clients was investigated in a sample of 485 South African clinical psychologists (return rate 23%). Evaluation of training and attitudes to sexual involvement with current and former clients and to other forms of touch in therapy were also investigated. Survey data from 111 psychologists reveal that 63.1% (79.1% of men and 52.9% of women) have been sexually attracted to clients, at least on occasion, while 97.1% have never become sexually involved with a client. Most (61.4%) do not feel anxious, guilty or uncomfortable about the attraction, although more women (50%) than men (26.5%) do. More than half (58.2%) felt that their sexual attraction had benefited the therapy process, while 76.1% believed that it had never been harmful. Men reported significantly more frequent benefit than women. In managing their sexual attraction, 60.8% sought support from supervisors, peers and their own therapists, while 31.9% worked through the feelings on their own. Ethical practice and welfare of clients were more important reasons for refraining from acting on sexual attraction than fear of legal or professional censure. Ethics codes consulted reflect the lack of nationally endorsed guidelines. Almost half (45.7%) had received no education about therapists' sexual attraction to clients, while only 10.6% had received adequate education. Education about the ethics of therapist-client sexual involvement was rated as significantly more adequate than training about therapists' sexual attraction to clients. Most (74.2%) said that their training was useful in helping them to make informed decisions about sexual involvement with clients. The majority (92.5%) felt that education on these issues should be a required part of training for clinical psychologists. Sexual involvement with former clients was considered less unethical than with current clients (65.2% vs 98.9%). 55.9% believe that there are circumstances in which sexual involvement with former clients might not be unethical, particularly depending on time since termination. Appropriate time between termination of therapy and sexual involvement ranged from immediately (1.8%) to never (44.1 %). Certain forms of touch are considered ethical, although attitudes varied depending on context and form. A handshake was rated to be always ethical by 66.3%, while 83.2% believe kissing is never ethical. There was lack of consensus about hugging and holding hands. Implications of findings and directions for future research are discussed. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.