ABSTRACT
Transference is the quiproquo (displacement) of the unconscious. It is a deferred displacement whose resolution consists in returning it to whomever it concerns and to wherever it comes from. Transference is compared to animistic thinking, according to which spiritual beings animate human beings in such a way that souls can migrate from one body to the other. Animistic thinking is governed by the omnipotence of ideas and is present in all the neuroses. It leads the patient to mistake someone who is there now for someone else (quiproquo) who was there then (deferral: at a different moment). The countertransference precedes the transference: the transference is addressed to the psychoanalyst and only exists because there is the context given by the psychoanalyst. The countertransference is both a response and an expectation. The analyst waits for the appearance of the transference manifestation and addresses it. Transference and countertransference both carry strong resistances.
