ABSTRACT
Transference puts people in touch with the unconscious assumptions that underpin the daily lives and loves. Transference in its widest sense comprises the whole gamut of the pattern of relationship – verbal, gestural, affective and behavioural – between the patient and the therapist. It can be thought of as the single most important factor in dynamic therapy. The temporary idealization of the therapist not infrequently includes an erotic component. It is only to be expected that the patient’s feelings toward the therapist should sometimes include sexual feelings, and for their dreams and fantasies to include the therapist playing the part of a lover. The emotions exhibited by the patient toward the therapist may be of any degree of intensity. Although transference is a universal phenomenon, there are also those who pass through a period of therapy without showing evidence of profound emotional involvement.
