Erotic Transferrence: When Attraction Enters the Coaching Room
By Liz Stewart
This is not easy to write about. It’s one of those subjects coaches and therapists avoid, but that’s also why I feel it’s important to bring it forward: the idea of attraction happening in coaching relationships. It happens with individuals. It happens between a coach and a client. It happens within a team. There are many ways for this to surface, and when it does, it can leave a coach feeling unsettled, unsure, or even ashamed.
In a coaching relationship, when attraction shows up, many things unfold. On one level, there’s the practical work: a coach supporting a client (or a team) with goals, themes, and development. But there’s also the human reality: two people — or a group — in relationship. Over time, bonds form. Because both coach and client bring their histories into the room, feelings can surface. Some are conscious, many are not.
This is why supervision matters from the start. It is even more important for coaches who are just beginning in their practice. If supervision is part of a coach’s professional support setup early on, the coach has a place to bring what arises as relationships deepen — especially when something shifts in ways that feel confusing or unexpected.
Attraction in a coaching relationship can be subtle and show up in different ways — not always obvious or easy to name. These moments can leave a coach questioning what’s going on, whether in one-to-one work, in groups, or in team coaching. Hopefully, supervisors are trained to work with the strong feelings that can emerge, helping coaches make sense of what’s happening in their work. The feelings can be hard to describe or even bring up, and supervision ensures there’s a safe place to do this.
What Attraction Means in Coaching
Attraction in a coaching relationship is rarely about the actual coach. More often, it reflects earlier relational needs being stirred — the longing to be seen, valued, or loved.
Attraction is powerful because it weaves together what’s happening in the present with unfinished patterns from the past. It isn’t bad or wrong. It’s human. But it is complicated, and it deserves care.
When attraction begins to come with longing, idealization, or fantasy beyond mere liking, this is what psychoanalytic writers have called erotic transference. Naming it isn’t about pathologizing; it’s about giving language to something real that coaches encounter.
The Body Knows First
The body often feels attraction before the mind catches up: a glance, a shift in breath, heat in the chest, restlessness during or after a session. Coaches may notice these stirrings in the moment, or later when the conversation replays in their mind.
Many people aren’t used to living with much body awareness, which makes these signals easy to miss. Sometimes they show up in posture — how someone sits, how they hold themselves, what they do with their legs or hands. These cues can be easier to sense in person, but they’re there on Zoom too. What matters is not to label them as sexual, but to see them as part of the broader communication happening between people.
These signals are worth paying attention to. They tell us that something deeper has been touched, and they need a safe place to be held.
When the Client Feels Attracted
Sometimes attraction is spoken, sometimes it’s only implied. When a client feels attracted, it may be less about the coach and more about unspoken needs for safety, closeness, or approval.
The risk is when the energy of the coaching begins to shift — away from the client’s growth and toward the relationship itself. That’s when the coach’s role is to notice, to hold boundaries, and to bring the experience into supervision.
When the Coach Feels Attracted
And then there are the moments that are harder to name: when the coach feels attracted. This is tender ground. Coaches are human, too.
What matters here is not acting on the feelings. The work is in noticing them, bringing them into supervision, and, when necessary, seeking personal therapy. The body gives us the clues: the way a client takes up more space in our thoughts, the pull of attention, the energy that lingers after a session. These aren’t cues for action — they’re signals that something is alive in the field and needs to be understood.
When Attraction Shows Up in Groups
Attraction doesn’t only belong to one-to-one work. It can appear between members of a team, or between group members and the coach. These moments are often complex and layered, and it’s not always clear how to respond in the moment.
Supervision — individual or group — is one of the best places to bring these experiences. With support, coaches can sort through what’s happening, understand their own responses, and keep the coaching space safe for everyone.
Why Supervision Matters
Supervision gives us a steady container for all of this. It’s where attraction, shame, longing and other feelings that impact a coach’s work can be spoken about with safety. It offers perspective and grounding, so we don’t feel alone with what shows up.
This is why supervision for coaches matters — not just when they are in need, but as part of their ongoing support system. Just as clients seek out help, guidance, and support for their growth, coaches benefit from having the same. Nobody at any level should have to be alone.
When a coach invests in supervision, they are investing in themselves. Not just through books or master classes, but through the ongoing relationship with a supervisor. Over time, this helps a coach know themselves more deeply and have someone who can reflect back to them who they are becoming as a professional.
And it matters that this is ongoing. When case consultation is part of regular practice, undercurrents start to reveal themselves naturally. When trust has been built between coach and supervisor — or within a supervision group — it’s easier to bring forward the uncomfortable feelings: shame, embarrassment, confusion. They can be held in a way that supports growth, not judgment.
Supervision helps us keep our work ethical, embodied, and alive. It helps us keep becoming.
Closing Reflection
When you imagine attraction entering your coaching room — whether it comes from a client, stirs in you, or arises between members of a group — what happens in your body? Can you notice your breath, your posture, the rise and fall of your chest?
What would it be like to carry those signals into supervision, not as problems to fix, but as truths to be understood?
Resources
For those who want to explore further:
Andrea Celenza — Erotic Transferences: A Contemporary Introduction
Susan Kavaler-Adler — Developmental Mourning, Erotic Transference, and Object Relations
Paul Geltner — Emotional Communication: Countertransference Analysis and the Use of Feeling in Psychoanalytic Technique
Manfred Kets de Vries — Organizations on the Couch: Clinical Perspectives on Organizational Behavior and Change
Peter Hawkins — Supervision in the Helping Professions
