Transference as Flashback: Wife=Mother, Therapist=Father
Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin
Date: 2022-01-26

Transference can be construed as a form of flashback (revividness): we displace onto a meaningful figure (like a therapist or an intimate partner) emotions and ideas associated originally with objects in earlier life.

We relate to the new entrant as if s/he were that previous figure and project onto them object representations acquired by earlier introjections.

This way we imbue them with disproportional significance and interact with them using ingrained behavioral strategies.

We often use projective identification to force the newcomer to react in ways that uphold this comfort zone, even when the outcomes are unfavorable to us.

In a way, transference is a repetition compulsion and so, clinically, a resistance. It serves to reenact early childhood experiences with a latent hope of redemptive resolution.

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