Transference in therapy is the act of the client unknowingly transferring feelings about someone from their past onto the therapist. Freud and Breuer (1895) described transference as the deep, intense, and unconscious feelings that develop in therapeutic relationships with patients.
Transference is when someone redirects their feelings about one person onto someone else. During a therapy session, it usually refers to a person transferring their feelings about someone else onto their therapist.
Transference is the redirection of feelings about a specific person onto someone else (in therapy, this refers to a client's projection of their feelings about someone else onto their therapist). Countertransference is the redirection of a therapist's feelings toward the client.
The role of transference is also important to self psychology. In psychoanalysis, transference is understood as the process in which a person in treatment redirects feelings and desires from childhood to a new object (usually the analyst).
Transference refers to feelings a patient has towards their therapist. These feelings are informed by the patient's relationships outside the therapy room, especially the relationships the patient had early in life.
It will also give you the opportunity to explore, release, and heal some of your oldest and most painful feelings. In fact, many therapists believe that transference plays an essential role in bringing these old feelings back to the surface. And working with these feelings is at the heart of the therapeutic process.
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.
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.
The transference definition in psychology is when a client redirects their feelings from a significant other or person in their life to the clinician. Think of it as the client projecting their feelings onto you as they would another person in their life.
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.
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.
The term 'unconscious transference' refers to the situation where a witness may misidentify a suspect (who is actually innocent) because they had seen the innocent suspect before, but not as the perpetrator of the crime.
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.
Examples of countertransference
inappropriately disclosing personal information. offering advice. not having boundaries. developing strong romantic feelings toward you.
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.
During transference, a person is relating to a template rather than genuinely connecting to another person. To end a transference pattern, one can try to actively separate the person from the template by looking for differences.
In transference, someone may be described as “projecting” feelings from past relationships onto the therapist in the present. But there is also a distinct concept of projection—also associated with Freud and psychoanalysis—that means attributing one's own characteristics or feelings to another person.
in self psychology, any one of a set of transferences that involve, and are used in treatment to activate, the narcissistic needs of the patient in relation to significant others; this contrasts with the classical psychoanalytic concept of transference as a transposition of one's needs (from various stages of ...
Concern About Patients Sabotaging Treatment. Sometimes individuals with symptoms of BPD lash out so intensely that it sabotages the treatment in such a way that even the most skilled therapist cannot stop this process. A common example is a patient cutting off all contact, or ghosting the therapist.
It can be uncomfortable at times and even painful.