Introduction
In his Tavistock Lectures, Jung gives very simple description of the basic principle that stands behind the phenomenon of transference. The term transference is the translation of the German word Übertragung, which means: to carry something over from one place to another… He says that the psychological process of transference is a specific form of the more general process of projection.
Projection is a general process by which the subjective content is transferred to the object. But to make things really deep, he uses an example of the color of the room. When we say, “The color of the room is white”, he says that this is a projection. Did you ever think about this in that way? He says that the object in itself is not white, white color is the idea in our mind and we connect this idea with characteristic of the room walls. If this is a projection, then projection is very, very common phenomenon. It happens all the time and our interaction with the world would be impossible if there were no projection. That means that projection is an essential for our contact with objects and persons we are surrounded with.
And here we come to the transference as a specific aspect of projection because it is concerned with dynamics that happen between two human beings and not between a person and an object. During projection we are confronted, more or less, with the fact that the reality of the object, as we see it, is in fact an illusion, which we do not recognize as such. When we find out that this is the case, we are confronted with a fact that the thing we saw in the other is part of ourselves.
In practice, analysts should be more conscious of the content that we tend to project than general public, but even so, not to the full extent. This part that we are not conscious is experienced as belonging to the client.
Transference is an unconscious dynamic between two individuals and, as a rule, is of emotional and compulsory nature. Emotions are always in some way overwhelming and at the same this condition is projected to the object and a bond between subject and object is created. An emotional process in one, immediately creates similar process in the other and we can say that emotions are extremely contagious. Every emotional process in a client has an effect in the analyst. In Tavistock Lectures, Jung says:
“And it is a great mistake if the doctor thinks he can lift himself out of it. He cannot do more than become conscious of the fact that he is affected. If he does not see that, he is too aloof and then he talks beside the point. It is even his duty to accept the emotions of the patient and to mirror them. That is the reason why I reject the idea of putting the patient upon the sofa and sitting behind him. I put my patients in front of me and I talk to them as one natural human being to another, and I expose myself completely and react with no restrictions.”
It is important to note that the intensity of the transference is closely related to the importance of its content for the subject.
Transference as a mean to connect
Jung says that transference is often caused by difficulty in making contact or establishing an emotional harmony between client and analyst. A good relationship supposes that the analyst and client are getting well together, they can talk to each other and there is mutual confidence. If this is missing in a therapeutic relationship, the unconscious tries to bridge the gap by building a compensatory relationship through projection. For example, in clients who are shut away in auto-erotic insulation trying to separate themselves from human contact and emotional dependence. Yet the transference aims at bridging that gulf by creating dependence on analyst being through projection and fascination.
Transference as a consequence of mutual unconsciousness
The other cause of transference, Jung mentions mutual unconsciousness and contamination which happens when the analyst has a similar lack of adaptation to that of the client.
I worked with a client who had traumatic experiences that made for him impossible to fight for himself because of the fear of retribution. I thought about how this could affect his functioning. My thoughts were along these lines. As he repressed healthy aggression that enabled him to fight for himself, this aggression was made artificially unconscious and amplified with the strength of the collective unconscious. In practice this manifested as occasional aggressive outbursts that were felt during session hours. In time I started to fear these outbursts and out of this fear I was very careful not to touch the topics that could call forth such outbursts or aggression in general. Now at the same time I was aware of my own tendency to avoid conflict, but only in part since I wasn’t aware that unconsciously, during the sessions, I also followed the same dynamics as my client. This manifested in half conscious anger toward the client and wish that he stopped coming to therapy. This is where my unconsciousness and unconsciousness of my client overlapped and this is where transference / counter-transference dynamics occurred. In time I recognized the fear to touch on the themes that could potentially cause a conflict as part of my unconscious dynamics and consequently as part of transference/counter-transference dynamics. As I dealt with this problem in my life, new vistas opened during the therapy that enabled me to touch the themes I couldn’t touch before. And as a consequence, the therapy continued.
The general reason for transference seems to be the same as for the projection, an activated unconscious that seeks expression and the intensity is equivalent to the importance of projected content. In practice this content can be of personal origin and you can deal with it through anamnesis dream work etc. But if one comes to the level where one recognizes the content that is of impersonal origin, you come to the archetypal level.
Special difficulties are created by transferences that are based on projection of archetypal content. For example, when savior archetype is projected to analyst, he readily dismisses the idea, but unconsciously it touches him. One secretly identifies with projected archetype and as time goes on the more readily believes that he is the really good, one of the best analysts etc. In time this could really affect his possibility of doing this kind of work. The idea is that analyst be continually on guard for inflation and Jung goes on even further saying that it could affect him physically as well, because of peculiar effect of emotional contamination from the client.
In practical terms, transference should be dealt as any other projection, that is by becoming conscious of the projected content. When this content is of archetypal origin, we encounter special difficulties, since one’s associations do not work, but we have to use amplifications from religion, ethnology, history, fairy tales and alchemy. And to come to the basic viewpoint, as much as this is possible, Jung, in his essay The Psychology of Transference, used parallel from alchemy.
Other parts of the seminar can be found here: