The Concept of Transference

In 1914 Freud published a paper, On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement,1 marked by a belligerency unusual in his quietly scientific works. It was a polemic directed against detractors of psychoanalysis, in particular against the 'schools' Adler and Jung had attempted to found after their secession from psychoanalysis. It was pertinent and necessary to Freud's purpose in writing this paper that he should establish clearly what psychoanalysis is and what it is not, in the opinion of its founder; accordingly we find in it certain statements of great importance. Among these is the following:

Any line of investigation, no matter what its direction, which recognizes these two facts [of transference and resistance] and takes them as the starting point of its work may call itself psychoanalysis, though it arrives at results other than my own. But anyone who takes up other sides of the problem while avoiding these two premises will hardly escape the charge of misappropriating by attempted impersonation, if he persists in calling himself a psychoanalyst.2

This, then, was to be the distinguishing mark of the genuine psychoanalyst, and from it sprang the well-known technical admonition that the genuine psychoanalyst must analyze the resistances and 'handle' the transference; and there can, indeed, be no quarrel among psychoanalysts as to the wisdom and rightness of Freud's statement and its technical consequences. It is the latter half of this technical dictum which occupies our interest in this paper.

The literature of psychoanalysis is filled with references to transference; yet the impression gained about transference from