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Summary of 'On the Dynamics of Transference' by Freud
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Summary, explanation and conclusion of the main ideas of the text 'On the Dynamics of Transference' by Freud.
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ON THE DYNAMICS OF TRANSFERSigmund Freud (1912)
Summary:
The subject of transference, complex and difficult to exhaust, has been briefly dealt with by Y.J. Stekel in 1911. We would l ike to
add a few points in order to understand how it necessarily occurs in a psychoanalytic cure and its role during treatment.
Every human being, due to his innate dispositions and the influences received in childhood, acquires a specificity for his lo ve life.
This creates a "cliché" that repeats itself throughout life, adjusting to circumstances and accessible love objects. Only a part of
these libidinous motions has reached full psychic development and is available to the conscious personality, while another pa rt
remains in the unconscious.
If the need for love is not fully satisfied in reality, the person will turn to new figures with libidinous expectations, including both
the conscious and unconscious portions of his libido. It is normal and understandable that this libidinal investiture i s directed
towards the doctor, following pre-existing patterns in the person. The "paternal imago", according to Jung, is usually decisive for
this transference, although it can also follow the maternal or sibling imago.
The transference to the doctor, when it exceeds the rational, becomes comprehensible if we consider that unconscious motions
are also involved. There are still two points to be clarified: why transference is more intense in neurotic people under anal ysis and
why in analysis it presents itself as the greatest resistance to treatment, while outside analysis it is a condition of success. When a
patient's free associations are blocked, we can eliminate this paralysis by signaling that they are under the effect of an occurrence
relative to the doctor, which changes the situation and facilitates occurrences.
At first glance, it seems a major disadvantage of psychoanalysis that transference, normally a powerful tool for success, becomes
the most potent means of resistance. However, on closer inspection, it becomes clear that this is not unique to psychoanalysi s. In
institutions where nervous patients are not treated analytically, intense and sometimes undignified transferences are observed,
even reaching a submission with evident erotic coloration. This is to be attributed to neurosis, not psychoanalysis.
The second problem, as to why transference turns into resistance during psychoanalysis, requires examining the psychological
situation of the treatment. The formation of a psychoneurosis involves a process of introversion of the libido, where conscio us
libido decreases and unconscious fantasies increase. The analytic cure follows this regressive libido, seeking to bring it back to
consciousness and put it at the service of objective reality. When analytic research encounters this withdrawn libido, a confl ict
ensues, as all the forces that caused the regression of the libido oppose the work of analysis to maintain the new state.
These resistances originate because the introversion of the libido was justified by a specific relationship with the outside world,
and if it had not been adequate at the time, it would not have occurred. In addition, the available libido has always been u nder
the pull of the unconscious complexes, and the regression was brought about by the relaxation of the pull of reality. In order to
liberate it, it is necessary to overcome this attraction of the unconscious and to cancel the repression of the unconscio us drives
and their productions.
This creates a large part of the resistance, which often maintains the disease even when the alienation from reality has lost its
temporal foundation. The analysis must combat resistance from both sources, and resistance accompanies every step of treatmen t,
making every occurrence and act of the patient a compromise between the forces toward health and those that oppose it.
If we pursue a pathogenic complex from its conscious manifestation to its root in the unconscious, we soon find a region wher e
resistance becomes evident. At this point, transference ensues, which occurs if something from the complex can be transferred to
the doctor, manifesting itself as an immediate occurrence and signaled by resistance, as the stopping of occurrences.
Transference is first presented as the most powerful tool of resistance in analysis. When we approach a pathogenic complex, the
part of the complex that can be transferred emerges first and is defended tenaciously. Once this part has been overcome, the other
elements offer less resistance. The longer the analytical cure lasts, the more transfer is used as a form of resistance.
We understand that transference acts as resistance only when it is negative. Positive transference, which includes conscious and
unconscious tender feelings, facilitates confession and is the bringer of success. The results of psychoanalysis are based on
suggestion, understood as influence through transferential phenomena, used to promote psychic work that improves the patient's
situation.
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