The gap between theory and clinical practice has remained one of the major problems of psychoanalysis. The concept of transference is a central bridge between these two areas; but it is a rather precarious one. Transference is not a self-evident, clearly delineated, or even directly observable clinical fact. There is little agreement, not only as to the specific origins and functions of transference, but even as to the clinical observations to which the concept refers. As Laplanche and Pontalis (1974) state it: “for many authors the notion of transference has taken on a very broad extension, even coming to connote all the phenomena which constitute the patient's relationship with the psychoanalyst. As a result, the concept is burdened down more