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The discussion of transference neurosis requires consideration of the entire subject of transference for two reasons: transference neurosis is a variety or subspecies of transference; and analytic writers often term transference what might be more properly called transference neurosis. To make this topic manageable I will consider essentially the theory and manifestations of transference neurosis, rather than its management in therapy. I will deal with it under several subheadings.
The first reference to transference in the psychoanalytic sense is found in Studies on Hysteria. The patient transfers disturbing ideas onto the figure of the physician, and this 'takes place through a false connection' (9, p. 302).
The next major reference to transference occurs in the case of Dora. In his postscript to this history Freud states: 'It may be safely said that during psychoanalytic treatment the formation of new symptoms is invariably stopped. But the productive powers of the neurosis are by no means extinguished; they are occupied in the creation of a special class of mental structures, for the most part unconscious, to which the name of "transference" may be given' (10, p. 116). This statement clearly adumbrates the later concept of transference neurosis. The stopping of formation of new symptoms corresponds to the clinical observation that when involved in the transference neurosis the patient's problems in external life subside. (The notion of the transference as a new creation of the neurosis will be discussed below.) Freud says of the transferences that they