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I agree with Dr. Natterson that one of the most difficult tasks in the art of analysis is to distinguish between the intrusion of an autonomous extra-analytic transference into the analytic situation and the displaced expression of hidden transference to the analyst toward persons outside of the psychoanalytic situation. I confess that it is much harder to see the issues clearly in my own analyses than it is to detect and clear them up in the analyses conducted by my supervisees.
That transference is a universal mental phenomenon which lies at the base of perhaps all human relationships was already hinted at in one of Freud's (1905) early communications on this topic, in the famous postscript to the case of “Dora”: “Psychoanalytic treatment does not create transferences, it merely brings them to light …” (p. 117). Two decades later, in “Autobiographical Study” (1925), he declares again that transference “… is a universal phenomenon of the human mind … and in fact dominates the whole of each person's relation to his human environment” (p. 42).
As with transference within the analytic situation, transference manifestations in relation to other persons must therefore be regarded as unavoidable. Nevertheless, some analysts seem to have overlooked Freud's dictum and interpret all transference manifestations exclusively in terms of the analytic situation.
Dr. Natterson has given a great deal of thought to this subject. He warns that if the analyst misinterprets some serious extra-analytic involvement of his patient, the patient will feel that he is not being understood. This can disturb the working alliance of the patient-analyst relationship, or, even worse, a seemingly complaint attitude develops toward the
analyst, preventing progress in the working-through. I can corroborate Dr. Natterson's findings.
He describes four typical instances in which extra-analytic transferences to persons in the patient's daily life have a bearing on the development of the transference with