TRANSFERENCE - CO-CONSTRUCTED OR BROUGHT TO THE INTERACTION

Contemporary understandings of transference diverge around the issue o f whether transference is co-constructed by both parties to the analyt ic interaction or brought to it by each participant. Examining the evo lution of the concept of transference distills some of the issues inhe rent in this controversy. It is suggested that each of these conceptua lizations contributes something essential to the development of a broa der picture of the way transference functions in the clinical setting. If transference is viewed as a process operating along a continuum of repression, both coconstruction of the interaction and the primitive wishes, fears, and fantasies brought to the interaction can be parsimo niously accounted for. Adaptive and archaic transference activity are distinguished, and the two dimensions of transference, dynamically int erconnected, are shown to be essential aspects of analytic understandi ng.