ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud gave a theoretical definition of the relationship of transference in terms of the system unconscious and its relationship to the preconscious/ conscious. Twenty years later he extended the concept of the "compulsion to repeat" to the status of a universal tendency, and thus logically extended the concept of transference to a universal tendency. Brian Bird sees transference as a "universal mental function which may well be the basis of all human relationships". This chapter summarizes two of Bird's central points: Freud was able to conceptualize transference in the Dora case, but he was not able to develop the implications of this crucial theoretical-clinical concept, and Freud was particularly unable to understand the implications of negative transference, and, because of this, he degraded the general importance of transference. The chapter also considers to what Bird considers perhaps the most important issue of transference, the transference neurosis.
