Transfer and countertransfer are two fundamental terms of psychoanalysis, serve as pillars of clinical practice, as they are a fundamental part of the analytical relationship; Moreover, although they are two different concepts, both transfer and counter-transfer are clearly inseparable.
Analytical encounter results in a patient-analyst relationship, in a space where the unconscious can move as freely as possible. In this interrelationship begins the dynamics between transfer and countertransfer, respectively for the patient and the analyst.
- The term transfer is not unique to psychoanalysis.
- But is also used in other areas.
- What appears to exist is a common denominator: it refers to the idea of moving or replacing one place with another.
- So.
- For example.
- It can be observed in doctor-patient or student-teacher relationships.
In the case of psychoanalysis, it is understood as the recreation of children’s fantasies where their destiny is the figure of the analyst, the transfer is the translation of something common, thus becoming a privileged space to go towards healing.
At first Freud considered the transfer to be the worst obstacle to the therapeutic process, he assumed it as a resistance of the patient to access his unconscious material, however, he soon realized that his role transcended this resistance.
So, Freud, in your text? From 1912, it presents transfer as a paradoxical phenomenon: while it is constituted as resistance, it is fundamental to the work of analysis. Is the positive transfer distinguishable at this time? Negative transfer of hostile and aggressive feelings.
“The one analyzed does not remember, in general, anything of oblivion and repressed, but of what he lives. It reproduces it not as a memory, but as an action; repeats, not knowing, of course, that it is doing so. – Sigmund Freud-
After Freud, many works devoted themselves to the issue of transfer, rething the subject and comparing it to the original development of the phenomenon, all agree that it is based on the relationship that forms in the therapeutic situation between the analyst and the patient.
Thus, for Melanie Klein, the transfer is conceived as a recreation during the session of all the unconscious fantasies of the patient; during analytical work, the patient will evoke his psychic reality and use the figure of the analyst to revive unconscious fantasies. .
For Donald Woods Winnicott, the phenomenon of transfer in analysis can be understood as a replica of the maternal bond, hence the need to abandon rigorous neutrality. The patient’s use of the analyst as a transitional object, as described in his article?An object?1969, gives another dimension to transfer and interpretation. It states that the patient needs the therapeutic link to reaffirm its existence.
While it has been said that the transfer has to do with recreating children’s fantasies about the figure of the analyst, for this to happen, a transfer link must first be established, allowing the patient to recreate and work on them.
To create the bond, once the patient accepts his desire to work on what happens to him, he will meet an analyst who knows what is happening to him. Lacan called him a “guy who’s supposed to know. ” This will produce the first level of confidence in this relationship, which will launch analytical work.
However, along the analytical journey, there may be manifestations in the transfer link that the analyst must know, handle them in a timely manner, such as: the signs of passion towards the therapist, the tendency to check the power of his attractiveness. returning the analyst to the position of lover, the tendency to follow without questioning instruction, rapid improvements without work and parallel effort and other more subtle signs, such as being late for consultations or making successive allusions to other professionals.
Of course, such situations do not occur solely on the part of the patient and manifestations of countertransfer can occur, in this sense, the analyst must also be attentive and analyze himself if they occur: discuss with the patient, have impulses to ask. favors to the patient, dream the patient, excessive interest in the patient, inability to understand the analysis material when the patient refers to topics similar to those experienced by the analyst, neglect to maintain the framework, intense emotional reactions related to the patient, etc. .
The term countertransfer was introduced by Freud in “The Future Prospects of Psychoanalytic Therapy?”1910. Il is described as an analyst’s emotional response to patient stimuli due to its influence on the analyst’s unconscious feelings.
The analyst should be aware of these phenomena for a simple reason: they can become an obstacle to healing, although there are also authors who argue that anything that resembles a countertransfer, known to have nothing to do with the analyst, can be referred to or directed at the patient.
It may be that the feelings that the patient evokes in the analyst, when returning, generate an awareness of himself or a better understanding of what is happening in the therapeutic relationship, something that until that moment had not been shared with words. example, reviving a child’s scene and the analyst begins to feel sad; however, the patient interprets it and experiences it as anger. The analyst can give back to the patient by making contact with the real emotion masked by anger.
On the one hand, countertransfer is defined by its direction: the analyst’s feelings towards the patient; on the other hand, it is defined as a balance that remains proof that one person’s reaction is not independent of the one that comes from the other. In other words, counter-transfer occurs in relation to what occurs in the transfer, so that one influences the other.
Transfer and counter-transfer influence each other
In this sense, the countertransfer can be an obstacle if practiced by the analyst, if you get carried away by these ailments you start to feel for the patient?Love, hatred, rejection, anger? violates the law of abstinence and neutrality to which it must be governed. So far from benefiting from analytical work, it hurts.
So the starting point is the patient’s transfer, does the patient communicate?Or he tries to communicate all his experiences and the analyst responds to what the patient says just because of what he thinks is relevant, without putting his own ailments into the interventions he performs. The patient revives fantasies, lives them but not consciously, so interpretation plays a key role in healing.
The analysis assumes that the patient’s transfer link is established with their analyst. It is in the interaction between transfer and countertransfer that affections, unconscious desires, tolerances and intolerances arise.
From the transfer relationship, the analyst can perform the interventions: interpretations, signalling, session breaks, etc. , that is, only if the transfer link is established can the work be deepened, otherwise the interventions will not be performed. have the same effect.
For all these reasons, in the analytical relationship, the strict neutrality of the analyst, combined with a fluctuating listening, which takes away his subjectivity – his own affections and history – this is what will allow the transfer to be used as a channel of work in The Analyst must become a kind of blank canvas, on which the patient can transfer his unconscious material.