Gj. Makari, IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER - HELMHOLTZIAN PERCEPTION AND THE ORIGINS OF FREUD 1900 THEORY OF TRANSFERENCE, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 42(2), 1994, pp. 549-580
Freud's 1900 theory of transference was indebted to the convergence of
philosophy and physiology found in nineteenth-century theories of vis
ual perception. The author maps out the post-Kantian philosophical and
German physiological currents that gave rise to Hermann von Helmholtz
's influential work on perception, and proposes that Freud's 1900 theo
ry of transference was a creative synthesis of novel notions like unco
nscious wishing and psychic defense with a Helmholtzian model of visua
l illusion.