Transference

For other uses, see Transference (disambiguation).
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Transference is a phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is "the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person's childhood".[1] Another definition is "the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object".[2] Still another definition is "a reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences, especially of childhood, and the substitution of another person ... for the original object of the repressed impulses".[3] Transference (German: Übertragung) was first described by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who acknowledged its importance for psychoanalysis for better understanding of the patient's feelings.

Occurrence

It is common for people to transfer feelings from their parents to their partners or children (that is, cross-generational entanglements). For instance, one could mistrust somebody who resembles an ex-spouse in manners, voice, or external appearance, or be overly compliant to someone who resembles a childhood friend.

In The Psychology of the Transference, Carl Jung states that within the transference dyad both participants typically experience a variety of opposites, that in love and in psychological growth, the key to success is the ability to endure the tension of the opposites without abandoning the process, and that this tension allows one to grow and to transform.[4]

Only in a personally or socially harmful context can transference be described as a pathological issue. A modern, social-cognitive perspective on transference explains how it can occur in everyday life. When people meet a new person who reminds them of someone else, they unconsciously infer that the new person has traits similar to the person previously known.[5] This perspective has generated a wealth of research that illuminated how people tend to repeat relationship patterns from the past in the present.

High-profile serial killers often transfer unresolved rage toward previous love or hate-objects onto "surrogates", or individuals resembling or otherwise calling to mind the original object of that hate. In the instance of Ted Bundy, he repeatedly killed brunette women who reminded him of a previous girlfriend with whom he had become infatuated, but who had ended the relationship, leaving Ted rejected and pathologically rageful.[6] This notwithstanding, Bundy's behavior could be considered pathological insofar as he may have had narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder.[7] If so, normal transference mechanisms cannot be held causative of his homicidal behavior.

Sigmund Freud held that transference plays a large role in male homosexuality. In The Ego and the Id, he claimed that eroticism between males can be an outcome of a "[psychically] non-economic" hostility, which is unconsciously subverted into love and sexual attraction.[8] There is, however, no empirical evidence for Freud's viewpoint, and this hypothesis of the development of homosexuality, and the belief that it can be treated or cured by psychoanalysis, is still scientifically unknown and inconclusive. Quoting from a New York Times news article: the case for homosexuality as purely biological in origin was still inconclusive and that the field still awaited a single coherent theory.[9]

Transference and countertransference during psychotherapy

In a therapy context, transference refers to redirection of a patient's feelings for a significant person to the therapist. Transference is often manifested as an erotic attraction towards a therapist, but can be seen in many other forms such as rage, hatred, mistrust, parentification, extreme dependence, or even placing the therapist in a god-like or guru status. When Freud initially encountered transference in his therapy with patients, he thought he was encountering patient resistance, as he recognized the phenomenon when a patient refused to participate in a session of free association. But what he learned was that the analysis of the transference was actually the work that needed to be done: "the transference, which, whether affectionate or hostile, seemed in every case to constitute the greatest threat to the treatment, becomes its best tool".[10] The focus in psychodynamic psychotherapy is, in large part, the therapist and patient recognizing the transference relationship and exploring the relationship's meaning. Since the transference between patient and therapist happens on an unconscious level, psychodynamic therapists who are largely concerned with a patient's unconscious material use the transference to reveal unresolved conflicts patients have with childhood figures.

Countertransference[11] is defined as redirection of a therapist's feelings toward a patient, or more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a patient. A therapist's attunement to their own countertransference is nearly as critical as understanding the transference. Not only does this help therapists regulate their emotions in the therapeutic relationship, but it also gives therapists valuable insight into what patients are attempting to elicit in them. For example, a therapist who is sexually attracted to a patient must understand the countertransference aspect (if any) of the attraction, and look at how the patient might be eliciting this attraction. Once any countertransference aspect has been identified, the therapist can ask the patient what his or her feelings are toward the therapist, and can explore how those feelings relate to unconscious motivations, desires, or fears.

Another contrasting perspective on transference and countertransference is offered in Classical Adlerian psychotherapy. Rather than using the patient's transference strategically in therapy, the positive or negative transference is diplomatically pointed out and explained as an obstacle to cooperation and improvement. For the therapist, any signs of countertransference would suggest that his or her own personal training analysis needs to be continued to overcome these tendencies.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Kapelovitz, Leonard H. (1987). To Love and To Work/A Demonstration and Discussion of Psychotherapy. p. 66.
  2. ↑ Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (8th ed. 1976).
  3. ↑ Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language (2nd College Ed. 1970).
  4. ↑ Jung, Carl C. The Psychology of the Transference, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-01752-2
  5. ↑ Andersen, S. M. & Berk., M. (1998). The social-cognitive model of transference: Experiencing past relationships in the present. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 7(4), 109-115.
  6. ↑ "Michaels, S. G., & Aynesworth, H. (2000). Ted Bundy: Conversations with a killer, Dallas: Authorlink.
  7. ↑ Describing Ted Bundy’s Personality and Working towards DSM-V. Douglas B. Samuel and Thomas A. Widiger. Department of Psychology at the University of Kentucky.Independent Practitioner (2007), 27 (1), pp. 20–22.
  8. ↑ Freud, S. (1960). The ego and the id. J. Strachey (Ed.). (J. Riviere, Trans.). New York: W.W. Norton. (Original work published 1923)
  9. ↑ Erica Goode, 12/12/1996, New York Times, "On Gay Issue, Psychoanalysis treats itself" URL: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/12/arts/on-gay-issue-psychoanalysis-treats-itself.html Accessed Oct 25,2013.
  10. ↑ Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (PFL 1) p. 496
  11. ↑ Horacio Etchegoyen: The Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique, Karnac Books ed., New Ed, 2005, ISBN 1-85575-455-X

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