ABSTRACT
As described in the traffic lights/roadmap diagram, patients present with either anxiety on the forefront or defences. Those patients which present with defence either use verbal and non-verbal defences in the realm of character or of transference resistance. Some patients who have more extreme pathology "split the ego" in order to preserve their cognitive capacities. These patients cannot tolerate complex transference feelings and vacillate between the poles of idealization and devaluation of the object. In theory, the complex transference feelings are activated by the process of moment-to-moment attention to the patient's psychic process. Again, in theory transference neurosis; that is, symptoms which the patient creates to avoid conflictual feelings, is thus circumvented and treatment is more efficient—less time, less suffering, less dependency, fewer negative therapeutic interactions. The success of working in the transference is heavily dependent on the patient being able to see the realistic therapist and to separate transference perception from the perception of the realistic therapist.
