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Transference is a vivid and inspiring idea. Yet, somewhere in the sharing and cultivation of it, we become muddled. In the very exertion of tracing its endlessly subtle nuances in human relations, the process of clarification bogs down. Beginning with Freud's basic formulations, this subject has occasioned ceaseless debate. Despite this, there persists till now an element of ineluctable mystery. The complexities of transference mount geometrically as we try to define its relations with reality, maturation and social learning. The element of mystery extends beyond transference; it encompasses the entire system of psychoanalytic theory and practice.
On occasion, a writer vividly absorbed in communicating a vivid idea, discovers that the flow of his expression suddenly slows down and threatens to break off altogether. The right words simply do not come, his writing turns awkward and labored. His thought processes become confused and blocked. He experiences a mounting distress. When this happens, the writer wise in his ways calls a halt. He takes time out to clear away the cobwebs. He casts aside what he has written, and starts all over again.
I propose, therefore, to take a fresh look at the idea of transference. I shall endeavor to re-examine transference and counter-transference from a particular point of view, namely, in relation to the shift from a conceptual model of psychoanalysis as representing essentially a one-person phenomenon, non-social, though influenced by an external agent, to a conceptual model of psychoanalysis as a two-person, social phenomenon.
Freud's term, transference, derives its specific definition within the theoretical scheme which he devised for psychoanalytic therapy as a whole. The evolution of Freudian thought is complex and reveals