-By Timothy Lyons

Transference is a repetition of a past relationship in one of the present.  This happens when a person redirects feelings and desires that they have in a significant relationship, usually from the past, onto another person. It is often described as the phenomenon when emotions from childhood are redirected to a substitute. It is characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. It is a term that was first introduced by Sigmund Freud. He believed that this mechanism was vital for the therapeutic encounter.

Transference

In Psychodynamic theory the main thrust of the therapeutic technique is the transference reaction that takes place between the client and the therapist. Without this transference the person would be unable to become self-aware of their own defense reactions and would be unable to complete therapy. The transference is made to happen by the therapist allowing herself to become the relationship that the client had with significant others in her past. The Client transfers the relationship with perhaps that of her mother or father to that of the psychotherapist. When the client begins to act toward the therapist in the same way that she did when she had the relationship with her parent the client becomes aware of the unconscious actions of their personality and can then order them so that they now can control them.

Once the client can begin to see the feelings and attitudes that she had toward others in that past she can begin to also see how that effects those relationships that they have in the present. The therapist uses these actions to guide the client so that those feelings and thoughts can become more positive and the client no longer has such negative reactions. Once there is order and awareness of the client’s unconscious reactions they can then become well.