Transference In Psychodynamic Therapy

The term transference originates from Psychodynamic Therapy where it is defined as a client’s unconscious conflicts that can cause problems in everyday life. It is where the individual transfers feelings and attitudes from a person or situation in the past on to a person or situation in the present and where the process is likely to be, at least to some degree, inappropriate to the present. Although the concept is originally a therapeutic one, it is also used to understand what can happen in any type of relationship whether personal or professional such as that experienced in the coaching/counselling relationship. The feelings that your client experiences in relation to you as his or her coach/client, that is where the individual transfers feelings based on feelings experienced with influential people and early life experiences onto you as the coach/counsellor, or perhaps another person that the client is involved with. Depending on that relationship a client may either form a positive or negative transference. For example, if the client has had difficulties with their parents, they transfer these feelings, without their conscious knowledge. Supposing the clients father was very authoritarian which the client found a difficult experience to be on the receiving end of, the client might transfer those difficult feelings onto anyone they perceive as

However, if the individual had a wonderful mother who was supportive and kind, it is possible the client may see you as such. A client may be wonderful to work with because they have made a positive transference of these qualities on to you from their experience from their mother. A positive transference is one where the client experienced positive feelings towards an individual based on the person in their past and a negative transference is just the opposite. If they have negative feelings, then it is these that the person transfers onto the