TRANSFERENCE AND REALITY

Since it was coined by Freud, the term ''transference'' has gone throu gh a number of definitions. The author traces the evolution of the con cept, proceeding from Freud's notion of transference as a repetition o f infantile modes of behavior or experience leading to a distorted and pathological perception of reality, and moving from there, via the '' discovery'' of countertransference, to the position taken up by those modern-day psychoanalysts who favor a social concept of transference d efined exclusively in terms of interaction and calling the very idea o f ''reality'' into question. Fetscher demonstrates that despite the cr iticism leveled by the interactionists at this concept in its original form they are in fact unable to relinquish the idea of objective real ity as a regulatory principle. The classical notion of transference th us retains its central status as a key concept.