Transference describes a situation where the feelings, desires, and expectations of one person are redirected and applied to another person. Most commonly, transference refers to a therapeutic setting, where a person in therapy may apply certain feelings or emotions toward the therapist.
What are the three types of transference?
Types of Transference
- Positive transference.
- Negative transference.
- Sexualized transference.
What did Freud mean by the term transference?
Transference, first described by Sigmund Freud, is a phenomenon in psychotherapy in which there is an unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another.
What is the difference between transference and countertransference?
So how does countertransference differ from transference? Countertransference is essentially the reverse of transference. In contrast to transference (which is about the client’s emotional reaction to the therapist), countertransference can be defined as the therapist’s emotional reaction to the client.
What is the concept of transference? – Related Questions
How do you recognize transference?
An obvious sign of transference is when a client directs emotions at the therapist. For example, if a client cries and accuses the therapist of hurting their feelings for asking a probing question, it may be a sign that a parent hurt the client regarding a similar question/topic in the past.
How do you break transference?
To end a transference pattern, one can try to actively separate the person from the template by looking for differences. Transference reactions usually point to a deeper issue or unfinished business from the past.
What are examples of transference and countertransference?
Transference is subconsciously associating a person in the present with a past relationship. For example, you meet a new client who reminds you of a former lover. Countertransference is responding to them with all the thoughts and feelings attached to that past relationship.
What is an example of transference?
Transference occurs when a person redirects some of their feelings or desires for another person to an entirely different person. One example of transference is when you observe characteristics of your father in a new boss. You attribute fatherly feelings to this new boss. They can be good or bad feelings.
What is transference and countertransference in massage therapy?
Transference occurs whenever a client projects unresolved feelings and personal issues (often from childhood, and often related to an authority figure) onto the practitioner. Countertransference occurs whenever a practitioner allows unresolved feelings and personal issues to influence their relationship with a client.
How do you identify countertransference in therapy?
Examples of countertransference
- inappropriately disclosing personal information.
- offering advice.
- not having boundaries.
- developing strong romantic feelings toward you.
- being overly critical of you.
- being overly supportive of you.
- allowing personal feelings or experiences to get in the way of your therapy.
Can therapists sense transference?
All well trained therapists are aware of transference and countertransference and should be comfortable bringing the dynamics up, when they sense that there is some form of transference happening.
Can therapists tell transference?
Therapists view transference positively, since it gives them a glimpse into how a client felt toward a significant person in their life. Some forms of therapy, like psychodynamic therapy, work to help clients explore and express these feelings.
What does transference look like in therapy?
With positive transference, the person receiving therapy redirects positive qualities onto the therapist. They may see the therapist as caring or helpful. With negative transference, the person receiving therapy transfers negative qualities onto the therapist. For example, they may see the therapist as hostile.
What is trauma transference?
This kind of post-trauma reaction is called traumatic transference, an unconscious dynamic that happens when someone has been traumatized and is later in a situation that reminds him or her of that trauma.
How do therapists get over transference?
Step 1: Increase your own awareness of when it is occurring
- Ensure you are aware of own countertransference.
- Attend to client transference patterns from the start.
- Notice resistance to coaching.
- Pick up on cues that may be defences.
- Follow anxieties.
- Spot feelings and wishes beneath those anxieties.
What is sexualized transference?
Sexualized transference is any transference in which the patient’s fantasies about the analyst contain elements that are primarily reverential, romantic, intimate, sensual, or sexual.
Do therapists fall in love with clients?
The reality is that many therapists have experienced occasional sexual or romantic feelings toward their clients—but only a small percentage do anything to act on them. Indeed, this is what a recent study of mental health professionals in Belgium, by Vesentini et al., has found.
What is mirror transference?
in self psychology, a narcissistic transference technique in which patients’ grandiose selves are reactivated as a replica of the early phase of their lives when their mothers established or undermined their sense of perfection by admiring or devaluing their exhibitionistic behavior.
What is psychic transference?
The transference is an aspect of psychic reality that represents a confusion between the patient and one of his or her objects–the analyst–brought about by projective identification.
What is narcissistic transference?
Narcissistic transference is viewed as a process of emotional flux, in which soundings are taken at intervals in order to study the changes that the transference undergoes during treatment. In narcissistic transference, the patient experiences the analyst as a presence psychologically intertwined with his or her self.
