Sunday, October 23, 2011

psychoanalytic basics- transference

What is called transference in the emotional sense is really just the analyst experiencing the character of the patient:

"The decisive part of the work is achieved by creating in the patient's relation to the doctor—in the 'transference'—new editions of the old conflicts; in these the patient would like to behave in the same way as he did in the past, while we, by summoning every available mental force [in the patient], compel him to come to a fresh decision. Thus the transference becomes the battlefield on which all the mutually struggling forces should meet one another" (Introductory Lectures, p. 454).

The struggles the analysand might have with the analyst qua authority he could have with his boss at work or his academic adviser. The sexual attraction the analysand might have for the analyst is the same she could have for a co-worker who listens sympathetically to her problems at their lunch break.

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