Ms

Transference is the unconscious expectation that the old injuries and insults will now again be suffered, only this time at the hand of friends, spouses, children, bosses, etc.--as if transferred from the past into the present. Transference makes one have irrational expectations from the people with whom one lives and works. For example, one may feel a need for the approval of a supervisor similar to the same feeling of need a child has towards his parents. Frustration of these expectations may evoke immature rage or other immature behavior. Transference causes great distress, but it also makes treatment possible. The method of treatment seems simple at first. The patient reclines on a comfortable couch in the analyst's office with the analyst seated behind the patient. The recumbent position, as well as not being able to see the analyst, minimizes distraction and allows concentration on inner experiences, thoughts, wishes, fantasies, and feelings. The patient is instructed to say absolutely everything that comes to mind without censoring anything, a technique that is called free association. This brings about a state of regression in which long-forgotten events and painful encounters are remembered, often with great clarity and intense emotions. At the same time, because of transference, the patient experiences the analyst as well, as if he or she were a figure from the past, perhaps resembling a parent. The analyst often can trace the connection between the patient's current fantasies and feelings about the analyst and the origin of these thoughts and emotions in childhood experiences. The analyst then interprets the re-experienced conflicts and traumas, together with the accompanying fears and feelings. The patient learns to recognize the connections between the experiences during the regressed state brought about by the analytic method which causes a reorganization of the psychological structures into more healthfully adaptive patterns . The analyst's friendly and