Countertransference- Dealing with attraction to client

Hi everyone,

This is a bit embarrassing but I wanted some advice since I am a doctoral student. I experienced attraction to two of my clients which was distracting during our sessions. I am wondering how other therapists have dealt with this so I am prepared in the future. Below I have 2 examples.

For the first client, we had switched from 6 months of virtual sessions to one in-person session. This was jarring. I noticed that I was very attracted to the client which made me very flustered in-session. They later skipped our termination session and gave a hard to believe reason for missing it (“I forgot”). I worry that I caused a rupture.

The second client we had worked with masks on for all (3) of our sessions. I was leaving the site and mask policies changed, so we were going to have a termination session without masks. I was initially taken aback by my attraction to the client and I worry that I changed the way I interacted with them. I do not think I conveyed my feelings but it was difficult to stay present.

Any advice would be helpful! Thanks!