Be Aware Of Transference

Sometimes in life we meet people who remind us of someone we knew; a grandmother that we loved, a caring mother, a father who provided us with safety, a special someone we loved, but things didn’t went as planned with that loved one. Sometimes that person who reminds us of the people we cared about in the past don’t even share any feature of those people he reminded us of. So, how did he or she do so?!

We as humans (i.e. emotional beings), tend to get attracted to people who are caring, people who listen empathically to our stories and try to help us with our troubles. It’s human nature. We tend to get attached to people who share us our moments of joy or sadness, even if we didn’t really know much about them. We relate to them we direct our emotions towards them.

We so much crave for someone to fill our empty space left by our loved ones from our past. We keep searching for someone or something we think might be the answer to our feeling of emptiness; someone or something that can fill that emotional void within us.

Sometimes we meet people who share features of our loved ones from our past. They say some phrases that our loved ones from the past used to say, they make similar gestures, they sometimes may resemble their voices, they may even remind us of some experiences we experienced with our loved ones from our past. That word “the past” has its magical effect. We are too much attached to our past, even if sometimes we don’t even know it. We keep fishing in our past trying to remember that old class mate from school who we were attracted to, but never really got to know, the girl from collage we used to like, but got our hearts broken, the guy who broke our hearts when we opened our hearts to them, and cared about them only to discover he didn’t really care that much. We sometimes see shadows of them in people we meet. We let our past take too much of our present and block us from realizing our bright future.

Why does all this happen?!

The answer is “Transference”!

Early in his career Sigmund Freud confronted a strange problem. Many of his female patients were falling in love with him. He though he knew what was happening, encouraged by Freud the patient would delve into her childhood; which of course was the  source of her illness or neuroses. She would talk about her relationship with her father, her earliest experiences of tenderness and love and also, of neglect and abandonment. The process would stir up powerful emotions and memories; in a way she would be transported back into her childhood intensifying this effect was the fact that Freud himself said little and made himself a little cold and distant although he seemed to be caring, in other words, quit like the traditional father figure.  Meanwhile, the patient was lying on a couch in a helpless or massive position, so the situation duplicated the roles of parent and child. Eventually she would begin to direct some of the confused emotion she was dealing with toward Freud himself. Unaware of what was happening she would relate to him as to her father. She would regress and fall in love. Freud would call this phenomenon Transference and it would be an active part of his therapy. ⁽¹⁾

So, what is Transference?

It’s a phenomenon in psychoanalysis that can be defined as follows:

·      It is the unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another.

·      It’s the redirection of feelings and desires especially those retained from childhood towards a new object (or person).

·      It’s the reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences, especially of childhood, and substitution of another person…for the original object of the repressed impulses. ⁽²⁾

The Good Side of Transference

This happens when we transfer positive emotions towards people who deserve these emotions. For instance a girl who transfers feeling of love and admiration she used to have for her loving father towards her caring husband, a guy attracted to a young caring girl who reminded him of his loving grandmother in the way she cared about him.

This good side of transference is fortified by discovering new born emotions added to the already transferred emotion. For example the man, who is attracted to a young girl because she reminded him of his loving grandmother, may develop a new emotion of respect for the way she handles herself in social gathering and this may fortify the overall positive emotions directed towards her. So, he not only love her because she reminds him of his grandmother he also, loves her because she has a specific trait unique to her.

The Dark Side of Transference

This self-destruction side of transference has two forms.

First, when we direct negative emotions towards people who doesn’t deserve these negative emotions. For example when a girl who didn’t like her father, transfers feelings of hate towards her caring husband who reminds her of her father in the way he eats or drinks. She begins imagining that her husband is as bad as her father who left her mother when she was young. She imagines that just because he eats or drinks in the same manner as her father or likes the same food he might abandon her as her father abandoned her mother. She tries to prove her fears to be true. She searches his pockets and scroll on his cell phone contact list, trying to find something that proves he’s cheating on her and he would some day leave her. She’s trapped in the box of hate to her father and she’s torturing her caring husband with no logical reasons.

Second, when we direct positive feelings towards people who doesn’t deserve these positive emotions. This is the most common form in my modest opinion. That’s one of the reasons why we might see a lot of kind women attracted to abusive men or why we see women attracted to men who are kind but don’t want a serious relationship with them. In this case the woman transfers positive emotions towards the guy, but the guy doesn’t care; may be he’s just not that into her or may be he’s just not looking for a serious relationship, either way he doesn’t deserve these positive emotions. This guy may remind her of someone in her past, may be a father, or a loved one from the past; someone she cared about too much but things didn’t go too well, or someone she cared about but passed away in an accident and she keeps searching for him in everyone she meets. Trying to fill the void left by a loved one may end up in a bigger void and an emotional scar that may take time to heal.

Why Am I Writing This?!

Well, I’m trying to raise awareness of this psychological phenomenon, to use the positive side of transference to our advantage and avoid its dark side. I’m trying to make people much aware of their emotions and have more control over them.

Ironically, life isn’t that simple! We can’t easily know who deserve our positive emotions, and sometimes we may fall for the wrong people anyway. We transfer feeling from our past without even knowing it. We search for people who remind us of people in our past… “The Past”, “The good old days” …we can’t have enough of them, do we?!

References:-

1)       Art of Seduction Audio book by Robert Green.

2)       Wikipedia – open online encyclopedia.

3)       My personal views and opinions.