The handling of transference

In Freuds opinion the handling of transference is the most difficult and im portant part of psychoanalytic technique. By handling he did not mean deali ng with transference and transference-interpretations in general but someth ing more specific and grasping, that has been regarded as non-analytic late r on. The author shows, how important the term was to Freud, and explores i ts development from ego psychology, Ferenczi and A. Balint to Gill and Thom a. He finds a lot of changes and conceptual clarification. Whereas Freud us ed the term for the vigorous interventions of the analyst at dramatic turni ng points of analysis, the author suggests to consider the handling of tran sference as a ubiquitous dimension of analytic work. It refers to the aspec t of action in analysis, not to interpretation, and therefore means the con tribution of the analyst to interaction. In qualifying this contribution, t hat is all aspects of the analysts behaviour as a handling of transference, we make them accessible as elements of the intersubjective process and the transference relationship, and with that we become able to analyse them. T he handling of transference is the genuine Freudian term for what Balint an d Loch called the art of relating (Beziehungskunst) - complementary to the art of interpretation (Deutungskunst).