Posted by Dinah on October 6, 2003, at 20:27:31
Ok, I've finally found an understandable explanation of working through the transference.
Freud at first thought that gaining insight into your unconscious patterns would be sufficient to change them. Unfortunately he found that his patients were able to gain insight into why they did what they did without changing their behaviors at all. So then he came up with the idea of "working through".
From "Between Therapist and Client" by Michael Kahn:
> "Working through" was the name Freud gave to the process whereby these insights could become so well integrated into the personality, both intellectually and emotionally, that the patient could give up old neurotic patterns.
> At first Freud thought that the way to permit the patient to work through insights was to have her encounter them over and over in one context after another.
(me again)
So I guess that means that your therapist points out to you these patterns as you tell him the events in your life or reactions to people.
Working through the transference means that you work through the insights using the therapeutic relationship, since it is right in front of you, and since the therapist becomes so important to the patient and is therefore likely to bring out a lot of the same patterns. So the therapists points out your patterns as they crop up over and over again in your relationship with him. And eventually you incorporate the insights into your personality structure and give up your neurosis.
So I guess I'll never work through my transference. :) If I'm reacting to my therapist in any of my typical patterns, I'm not at all aware of it. Nor has he brought it to my attention. He's more likely to point out how I react differently to him than to others. He doesn't remind me of my mom or dad, or my husband (who also doesn't remind me of my mom or dad).
poster:Dinah
thread:266113
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20030925/msgs/266113.html