The precise date and the circumstances of the discovery of the transference have not yet been clearly determined. I have attempted to throw light upon the problem by examining the unconscious motivations which may have been operative in this discovery, by putting the discovery back into historical perspective, and by making use of the available biographical data concerning Freud.

From the inception, in the late eighteenth century, of the experimental study of the psychotherapeutic relationship, the interest of the investigators had been aroused by the erotic complications which were liable to arise between the physician and his female patients. As a result, the writers of the nineteenth century had shown a strong resistance to interpersonal involvement, as also to the study of any affective relationship whatsoever between therapist and patient.