Transference (psychoanalysis)

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The concept of transference comes from psychoanalysis and has also established itself in depth psychology . Where he refers to the process that a human being old - often repressed - feelings , emotions , expectations (especially role expectations ), wishes and fears from childhood unconsciously to new social relations transmits and reactivated. Originally, these feelings may have been related to parents, siblings, or other caregivers during childhood, but remain even after the separation of his parents in the psyche present and act there. This process is largely normal and widespread at first, but if the transferred feelings are found to be inadequate to actual current relationships, it can create significant problems and tension. Depth psychology and psychoanalysis make use of the phenomenon of transference because, with its help and the associated countertransference, the effective conflicts of a counterpart - such as a patient , analysand or supervisee  - can be understood.

term

The concept of transference comes from Sigmund Freud . He used it for the first time in 1895 in the "Studies on Hysteria", but it was only in the presentation of the " Dora case " in 1905 that he defined it as a psychoanalytic term. It was later developed by many of his students, including Carl Gustav Jung . Even outside of psychoanalysis and the directions of psychotherapy that emerged from it, almost every psychotherapy school today uses the term transference without necessarily adopting the psychoanalytic explanatory model. In psychoanalysis, transference is to be understood as a psychodynamic term that was originally intended to express a psychoenergetic transference within the topical structures. However, it can also be used in a sociological context, such as in stigma research .

The term is closely related to the term projection , in which properties that the projecting person does not want to see in himself are ascribed to other people . In contrast to transmission, however, these wishes or expectations are not pursued .

A general distinction is made between positive and negative transference. With positive transference, positive parts of previous relationships (love, affection, trust) are transferred, with negative transference, negative parts (hate, aversion, anger, distrust). It should be noted that both poles are usually present, only that one type of transmission is in the foreground, the other, unconscious counterpart in the background. This comes out in small parts, for example in sarcastic or ironic utterances, in mistakes , or in negative utterances about a (non-present third) person you do not like.

Freud also used the term in connection with dream analysis. Here he spoke of "transference thoughts" and hereby referred to the process that unconscious wishes are "transferred" into the preconscious so that the unconscious wish can be expressed through a kind of "shift".

Transfer in the Freudian understanding

Freud's conceptualization of the transference term describes the shifting of feelings, properties, fantasies and (object) imagines that arose in connection with remembered, meaningful persons of childhood and which are transferred to the analyst in the free association of the psychoanalytic setting. Shifts and projections in the therapeutic lead to a distortion of general reality, but especially to an unrealistic view of the analyst. That is, transference is everything that the patient experiences and is linked to the person of the analyst. This makes transference and countertransference an elementary means of therapy. The countertransference is the opposite of the transference in the analytical setting, it comes about through the patient's influence on the unconscious feelings of the doctor. Therefore Freud demanded that the analyst should recognize this countertransference within himself (training analysis ).

Transmission in the Jungian concept

Jung's concept of transference differs significantly from Freud's psychoanalytic understanding. He emphasized that one would have much less trouble with the transmission if the therapist and the patient were sitting opposite each other, i.e. the therapist was completely exposed and would react to the patient without hesitation. Because in this way the patient constantly experiences a human counterpart. For Jung, the essence of the transference phenomenon was finding the relationship with the self . Jung initially saw in the countertransference a disruption of the depth psychological therapy process, so that the patient unconsciously influenced the doctor, disturbing him. The analysand's complexes would infect therapists. Analytical psychology later differentiated between 'illusory countertransference', in which the analyst unconsciously transfers his own content to the analysand, and 'syntonic countertransference', in which the analyst is able to perceive unconscious processes in the analysand through fantasies and emotional reactions to the analysand.

Concept of transference neuroses

Freud's concept of transference neurosis is another name for his model of psychoneurosis because of the different therapeutic techniques that can be used. According to Freud, transference neuroses prove to be accessible to analytical technique. By transference is meant the projection of early childhood conflicts onto the therapist or analyst as an essential and inevitable therapeutic tool. Freud made the experience that the analysis offers the opportunity to reactivate unprocessed material from early childhood and to process it anew. With this therapeutic concept, however, Freud delimited the narcissistic neuroses on the one hand, which are inaccessible to analytical methodology, and the actual neuroses on the other (see below: Transfer in the therapeutic context ). Freud included phobia , conversion hysteria and obsessional neurosis among the transference neuroses . For him, they represented the basic facts on which he built and justified his model conception of metapsychology .

Alfred Lorenzer examined the psychoanalytic doctor-patient relationship as a language analysis. He understands the decoding of the meaning of specifically incomprehensible behavior of the analysand as an understanding of analogue scenes in comparison between the current and early childhood situation. The transference neuroses are the effects of a deformed language game. The patient " acts " by playing an incomprehensible early childhood scene. The therapist's hermeneutic understanding of such analog scenes contributes to healing.

Organ neuroses represent another form of neurosis which is special from a therapeutic point of view .

Examples of transfers

An example should clarify the basic mechanism of the transfer:

An employee is repeatedly violently and unfairly devalued by her superior. Nevertheless, she admires him and tries to please him by performing well and being attractive. In relationships, too, she is always looking for strong partners, where she experiences a lot of violence and still does not break up. In doing so, she transfers feelings that actually apply to her violent father to her boss or partner. She wants from them the affirmation or affection she longed for from her father without ever getting it.

This mechanism can be found in many similar situations in social life:

  • Vengeance and righteousness in adulthood go back to loveless upbringing (upbringing through withdrawal of love)
  • Strongly negative reactions to narcissistic insults are due to preference for other siblings and lack of love
  • Separation anxieties are based either on experiences of separation in childhood or on a very strong and well-developed bond with certain people
  • Spontaneous sympathy / antipathy towards certain people: The causes are parallels to people in the past.

Transfer in a therapeutic context

In the context of psychotherapy there are regular transmissions. Here the client directs certain feelings, expectations or desires towards his therapist, which are not so much for the therapist as a person, but actually come from the client's previous relationship experiences. Conversely, the therapist can also transfer feelings to his client; this process is called countertransference . Such processes can represent an obstacle to therapy that must be taken into account by the therapist. An obstacle is also to be seen when the patient, for fear of hurting the therapist, splits up positive and negative transferences and shifts the negative transferences outside of therapy. This then makes it more difficult to consciously deal with these feelings in therapy.

The analysis and awareness of transference processes ("transference analysis") is seen in some psychotherapeutic schools, especially in psychoanalysis , as a central element for the success of therapy. The analysand should see in the person of the psychoanalyst a person with whom he tries to resolve conflicts from the past in the present. For example, the analyst assumes the role of the father in the analysand's perception (initially unconsciously to the analysand ). The conflict (with the father) that the analysand is working on is made conscious and communicable through the quasi-presence of the father and can be resolved through the discussion with the therapist. Earlier feelings and perceptions are transferred to the analyst (e.g. being at the mercy) and possibilities are sought to deal with them appropriately in the present day (e.g. the reproach of the pain felt, the perception of one's own helplessness, the understanding of the self, forgiveness ).

Example: A depressed patient feels well understood by her therapist and has friendly or tender feelings for her. She transmits these wishes and says that the therapist would think and wish in the same way. So she buys her presents and invites them to coffee. Subconsciously, she sees the therapist as her successful sister, who has always been more successful than she and who has always emulated her. In therapy, these relationships are carefully worked out by the therapist together with the patient. The patient learns that her depression is also the result of failures, which she has only experienced because she has always tried to copy her sister, but has forgotten to develop her own personality and strengths.

See also

literature

  • Sigmund Freud : On the dynamics of transmission. In: Treatment-technical writings. Frankfurt a. M .: Fischer 2000 (3rd edition). ISBN 3-596-10445-9
  • Ute Wahner: transference and countertransference processes in psychotherapies. A special bibliography of German-language psychological literature. Central office for psychological information and documentation. Series: Bibliographies on Psychology, No. 90/1993.
  • Michel Neyraut : The transfer. Psychoanalysis literature. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1976, ISBN 3-518-07283-8
  • Huberto Nagera (Ed.): Basic Psychoanalytic Concepts. An introduction to Sigmund Freud's terminology and theory building. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-596-26331-X , pp. 484-513

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sigmund Freud : Hysteria and Fear. Vol VI, study edition, S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-10-822706-8 , p. 92
  2. ^ Klaus Dörner : Citizens and Irre . On the social history and sociology of science in psychiatry. (1969) Fischer Taschenbuch, Bücher des Wissens, Frankfurt / M 1975, ISBN 3-436-02101-6 ; P. 11 f. to “Psychoanalysis and Sociology”.
  3. ↑ Freud, Sigmund : The Interpretation of Dreams . [1900] Gesammelte Werke, Volume II / III, S. Fischer, Frankfurt / M, the following page references from: Paperback edition of the Fischer library, Aug. 1966; on tax “transfer”: p. 458 f.
  4. ^ Heinrich Racker : Transfer and countertransference. Studies on psychoanalytic technique. Ernst Reinhardt, Munich / Basel, ISBN 3-497-00834-6 , p. 22
  5. ↑ Peters, Uwe Henrik : Dictionary of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology . Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich 3 1984; “Transfer neurosis”: page 583
  6. ↑ Lorenzer, Alfred : Speech Destruction and Reconstruction . Preparatory work for a metatheory of psychoanalysis. Ffm. 1970, new edition 1973.
  7. ↑ Habermas, Jürgen : The universality claim of hermeneutics . (1970) In: To the logic of the social sciences, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch, Wissenschaft 517, Frankfurt 51982, page 345 f.
  8. ^ Greenson, Ralph R .: Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1986 (Orig. 1967), 9th edition 2007.