Transference and A-Transference Phenomena1

Transference is a theory and a basic technical tool. It has the extra burden of being the hall-mark of psycho-analysis. Being such a basic tenet, its field of application, the extension of what is considered transference, tends to undergo changes and often we do not perceive these tidal movements. A discipline can easily take for granted its basic assumptions.

In this paper I shall discriminate two transference states: the first, which I shall call transference virtuality, is characterized by a 'frozen', non-specific, undeployed 'load' of transference material that impinges upon the analyst, more often at the outset of treatment. This phenomenon is more clearly seen in hypnosis. The second state, which I call transference actuality, is the usual ongoing transference relationship that deploys itself in the psycho-analytic process. Finally, I shall refer to moments of a-transference which I believe occur in every analysis.

I will start with a statement which, although paradoxical, is obvious. It could be said that psycho-analysis is the least transferential of all situations. This follows from the fact that from the start in every analysis the transference equivocation is being sorted out and conflicts are continuously tracked back to their original referents. Transference is rectified in treatment. My assertion becomes less paradoxical-sounding if a distinction is made between the whole stock of 'frozen' fantasies which the patient is ready massively to project into the analyst and the deployment of transference relationships that unfold themselves in an ongoing analytical process. Nunberg (1932), speaking of 'transference readiness', Gill and Brenman (1959), in their notion of 'frozen transference', and G. Rodrigue (1966) speaking of 'primary transference', have described the first condition of undeployed transference.

Nunberg in particular speaks of the total identification some patients make of the analyst with the primary object. In this readiness to tr