Transference as A Fulcrum of Analysis

This Paper will be concerned primarily with a discussion of the place and the function of transference analysis, and with the exploration of the parallels between the analyst's concept of human relationships—based as it is on the studies of the analytical process—and those of Martin Buber. I intend to show in this paper that the exploration of the transference which the analyst undertakes together with his patients has really as its goal a shift in the character and quality of a person's relationships from the ‘I-It’ towards the ‘I-Thou’ attitude, as these have been defined by Buber. The parallel to which I shall point in this paper should not, of course, mislead the reader to assume that the theories of Jung and Buber are at all points closely related. On the contrary, there are very many important differences between them, but in this area of the evaluation of human relationships the correspondences seem to me worth noting and exploring.

Jung in his paper entitled ‘The therapeutic value of abreaction’, which he published in the British Journal of Psychology in 1921 and which now forms part of volume 16 of the Collected Works, discusses the origin and the function of transference in analysis as follows (I shall quote from it fairly extensively since it is very pertinent to my theme):

‘The transference phenomenon is an inevitable feature of every thorough analysis, for it is imperative that the doctor should get into the closest possible touch with the patient's line of psychological development. One could say that in the same measure as the doctor assimilates the intimate psychic contents of the patient into himself, he is in turn assimilated as a figure into the patient's psyche. I say “as a figure”, because I mean that the patient sees him not as he really is, but as one of those persons who figured so significantly in his previous history.

‘The transference therefore consists in a number of projections which act as a substitute for a real psychological relationship