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The value of the patient's repetition in the transference of his repressed strivings has long been recognized as providing the basis for corrective emotional experiencing in the analytic situation. 1 Yet, to the extent to which the patient may seek to utilize the transference for obtaining gratification, the transference repetition is also seen as the source of the most stubborn resistance. However, since it is in the very nature of unconscious strivings operating in primary process to achieve outlet in the form of gratification—whether in dream, symptom, or phantasy—gratification is intrinsic to the analytic transference. The seeming paradox which thus inevitably follows, invites our further attention to the role and meaning of gratification in the transference. The function of transference as gratification, as a vital therapeutic dynamic in itself, is the question that will be explored more fully in this paper.
Concerning a type of transference mechanism used by schizophrenics, Mme. Sechehaye writes:
One is nearly always aware of a transference mechanism used, not to relieve a complex traumatic situation, but, on the contrary, to attempt to compensate for the disturbing effects this early situation has had on them. 12
According to the thesis of this paper, not only the schizophrenic, but also the neurotic, though to a lesser degree, utilizes the transference to achieve a compensatory gratification for the traumas that were pathogenic for him.
That the transference operates as a compensatory gratification becomes evident when we view the dream process as the basic model