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Samuel Ritvo opened the discussions by giving working definitions of transference and transference neurosis, which he hoped would be redefined as a result of the day's work. By transference he understood a tendency to repeat in the psychoanalytic situation with the analyst the relationships with the original objects of childhood. The transference neurosis he defined as the repetition of neurotic conflicts of earlier times in the psychoanalytic situation and in relationship to the analyst.
The views of the role of the transference neurosis have changed greatly since the earliest days of child analysis. Ritvo contrasted Anna Freud's 1926 views with her most recent statements on the subject. In 1926 she stated that only transference reactions occurred in child analysis, because the original objects were still real and available for libidinal and aggressive discharges. In addition, the analyst does not behave as a shadowy figure, and has frequent contact with the parents for information; both these factors were felt to interfere with the development of a transference neurosis.
Anna Freud's current views, as expressed in Normality and Pathology in Childhood, are that a transference neurosis with children does develop but that it does not equal "the adult variety in every respect." This change of her position has been brought about by experience, the elimination of the introductory phase, and the use of defense analysis with children. The child's inability to free-associate, the preponderance of aggressive transference reactions, the use of the analyst by the child as a real object, and the child's externalization of his psychic structures onto the analyst, all combine to make the transference neurosis in child analysis less distinct.