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The transference reactions and the working alliance are clinically the two most important varieties of object relations that take place
in the analytic situation. More archaic types of human interaction also occur, antecedents of transference as well as transitions to transference phenomena. Such primitive responses are prone to arise in severely regressive states and require more “management” than insight therapy (Winnicott, 1955, 1956b; James, 1964). They will, therefore, not be discussed here. On the other hand, a “real relationship” also comes about in the course of analysis. Before returning to the subject of transference phenomena it is necessary to discuss and clarify the concept of the “real relationship” between patient and analyst. This is not as simple as it might appear at first glance, because the term “real” has essentially two different meanings and usages, each of which may have a dissimilar connotation in the patient and in the psychoanalyst. This topic has been touched upon by many authors, but their astute clinical findings suffer from the lack of a clear definition (Stone, 1954b, 1961; A. Freud, 1954a, 1965).
The term “real” in the phrase “real relationship” may mean realistic, reality oriented, or undistorted as contrasted to the term “transference” which connotes unrealistic, distorted, and inappropriate. The word real may also refer to genuine, authentic, and true in contrast to artificial, synthetic or assumed. At this point, I intend to use the term real to refer to the realistic and genuine relationship between analyst and patient. This distinction is of importance because it enables us to compare what is real in the patient's relationship to what is real in the analyst's. In both the patient and analyst, transference reactions are unrealistic and inappropriate, but they are genuine, truly felt. In both, the working alliance is realistic and appropriate, but it is an artifact of the treatment situation. In both, the real relationship is g