What is psychoanalytic transference?
During therapy, the psychoanalyst takes the place of the characters in a patient's story. The father, the mother, the brother, the master… To all those who have played a positive or negative role in the patient's life. All the emotions, the thoughts, which it is forbidden to express, the patient will then transfer to the analyst.
The psychoanalyst becomes the "scapegoat" of the story told by the patient and he accepts this position, either by remaining silent or by responding differently from what the responses of the characters in question were, when they were. traumatic.
This is the transfer. Without it, there is no analysis. But it can also be a resistance to analysis, since over the course of the sessions, the patient will develop more or less affectionate, even loving, feelings towards his analyst. He will start to modify his behavior so that he likes him back. But all this in an unconscious way. This demand for love is thwarted only if the analyst uses his tact not to respond to it.
The transfer is therefore an enigma to be deciphered both for the professional and for the person who consults. The professional analyzes the transference, trying to understand why his patient had such and such a dream, for example, and why he is telling it to him.
Is transfer therefore essential for an analysis?
From the moment an analysis begins, the transfer is there. Patients who are unable to transfer prevent the scan.
There are several floors in the transfer:
The first takes place in dreams. For example, when we dream of a boyfriend, maybe we dream of our father. This is an effect of censorship, so that you don't admit to yourself what you say about your father, but allow yourself to say to yourself if it's a boyfriend.
The second floor: the transference is induced by the fact that we anticipate the analyst's gaze on ourselves, especially on our unconscious desire, for things that we prefer to ignore. So we lend him knowledge that can create love. And if you find that he doesn't know anything, it can create hatred. It is a discourse that is linked to the illusion that the other knows something about us that we ignore.
This illusion that the psychoanalyst knows what one wants dissolves over time. A bit like a mirage: you think there is water in the desert, but the closer you get to the goal, the more you realize that there is no water. The moment this illusion, which is necessary, is abolished, it is the end of the transference. The patient realizes that the only one who knows anything about his unconscious desire is himself.
This can be disappointing for the patient, who thinks he could have done this whole journey alone …
At the end of the treatment, the psychoanalyst loses his position. This may be accompanied by a moment of sadness for the patient who may then say to themselves: " I had to go through this, it was necessary so that it does not go on forever and that I do not spend my life having multiple transfers on people who can be toxic to my psychic life "The patient will therefore be more vigilant and wary in his ability to fabricate an ideal.
Can transference take place in all therapies or only in psychoanalysis?
It takes place in all therapies. Except that in psychoanalysis we are concerned with analyzing it and dissolving it. Everyone uses transference, whether in cognitive therapy, behaviorist… So the doctor-patient relationship is partly based on this transfer. By his personality and by the knowledge we attribute to him about ourselves, we effect a transfer to the doctor. In many cases, people who think they have an illness feel better just after getting a prescription.
So we can make transfers in all areas of daily life?
Yes, from the moment we assume that the other has additional knowledge, there is a transfer. The priests are a good example of this, since they are credited with knowledge about what happens after death. When you have faith, it creates a transference. We can also transfer to a member of his entourage, and in this case, this is more of the domain of dreams, as was said previously. Freud showed that the characters in dreams replace others and that in a way they are all a representation of ourselves, our desires, our fears …
What is countertransference?
It is the analyst's resistance to analysis. This prevents him from accommodating the transfer of the patient. When the analyst believes that what is said is directly intended for him, it touches him personally, he reacts defensively and the transference trap has closed in on him. The analyst is then no longer able to analyze what is said to him. These are the blind spots of the latter, slowing down the cure.
Jean-Pierre Winter, author of Choose psychoanalysis, ed. Points
Read also :
⋙ 5 misconceptions about Freud
⋙ Laps, failed acts … We cannot escape our unconscious!
⋙ Was Freud a misogynist?