THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS Vol. XXXIV 1953 Part 1 ORIGINAL PAPERS SOME ASPECTS OF TRANSFERENCE* 1 By DANIEL LAGACHE, Paris I. Preliminary Remarks Watson’s Behaviourism, but approximates more However close the links between theory and closely to the more evolved forms of Behaviour­ practice, it might be considered permissible to ism (Molar Behaviourism) according to which regard psycho-analysis as essentially a method conduct cannot be reduced to separate entities of therapy with the manipulation of transference but constitutes a totality of responses which are as its principal tool. In view of this it is rather both physiological, conative, and symbolical, astonishing that, apart from Fenichel’s book, so this totality having a meaning. It is for this little should have been written on technique and reason that the verbalizations of the patient are that works on transference should be even not only considered on the basis of their abstract rarer. This is one of the reasons why the content, their face value, but are regarded at Psycho-Analytical Society of Paris has placed the same time as a piece of concrete behaviour, the problem of transference on its programme a mode of dealing with the psycho-analytical for the next conference of French-speaking situation; for instance, a stereotyped tendency psycho-analysts which is to take place in Paris to begin a session by an account of dreams can on 1 November, 1951. Nor is this an isolated be interpreted as a resistance, the psycho­ case; psycho-analysts are turning their atten­ analyst neglecting partially and for the time tion once more to this problem (unless those being the content of the dreams. who are themselves interested in this topic come (3) The behaviouristic point of view chal­ to this conclusion as the result of an illusion). lenges the psycho-analyst to interest himself Such considerations and circumstances have in the experimental studies of behaviour and carried a great deal of weight ih the decision particularly of learning. In relation to psycho­ to bring up this question before your Society analysis, experimental psychology could play and to promote discussion of various points of a part analogous to that played by experimental view on transference. pathology to medicine. Experimentation, Before embarking upon this matter it might though not as concrete and comprehensive as be useful to indicate the sort of approach that clinical psychology, is yet in a position to seems practicable to me. I will content myself furnish simpler and better-established principles. with three remarks. Furthermore, the use of the same or analogous (1) Speaking generally, psycho-analysis has concepts serves as a sort of experimentation on tended more and more to become a psycho­ ideas and also shows up some new aspects of analysis of behaviour (Lagache, 1948); the them; as an example we may cite experimental compatibility of psycho-analysis and the psycho­ works on instrumental fixations and regressions, logy of behaviour has been very clearly shown or on the problems of conflict. Of course such by Susan Isaacs (1938). rapprochements must not lead to a falsification (2) The concept of behaviour which has been of psycho-analytical data and of the hypotheses found useful in psycho-analysis is not that of put forward to account for them. 1 Paper read at the meeting of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, 4 April, 1951. 1 2 DANIEL LAGACHE The psycho-analylicai approach to behaviour Now a segment of behaviour is a dynamic finds an ideal held in the study of transference; structure which develops through time and has not Freud himself postulated that in trans­ which consists of different facets: ference the patient substitutes repetition by (1) Motivation, that is to say, the modifica­ behaviour for remembering by thought and tion of the personality which sets it in motion, language? (Freud, 1917). until the tensions and dissociations inherent in needs and emotions have been reduced; psycho­ //. A Definition o f Transference analysis has shown that motivation is indeed Transference is generally defined as a repeti­ multiple—that is over-determined—contentious tion in present-day life, and particularly in the and partly unconscious; let us add that it relationship to the analyst, of unconscious changes with the development of activity which emotional attitudes developed during childhood is at the same time motivated and motivating; within the family group and especially towards the activity is in response to certain modifica­ the parents; it is usual to add that the trans­ tions of the organism in its environment, and ference may be friendly, hostile, or ambivalent. the organism itself is modified by this activity Although we could refer to Freud in defence of itself. this definition, yet it fails to represent com­ (2) Variable behaviour—that is to say the pletely all the aspects of his thought or the search after means (tools and social techniques) complexity of the facts. It is true that defini­ with the aid of which the personality tries to tions of this type say more than they state reduce excitation, whether through the use of explicitly. Let us try to express it. old patterns or through adjusting them to the This type of definition can be subjected to new situation ; this is a phase of conduct which three principal criticisms: can work itself out more or less completely in (1) In a descriptive analysis it is undoubtedly the symbolic guise of a mental experience. possible to speak of the phenomenon of repeti­ (3) The goal of behaviour which may be tion. But this does not tell us its function, such alloplastic, autoplastic, or mixed. as whether we are dealing with a repetition (4) The object of behaviour with the help of motivated by particular needs or with an automa­ which the organism tries to reach its goal and tic and compulsive repetition due to a specific which has always either a positive or a negative need to repeat. The second interpretation is value correlated to the needs in question. on the whole the more usual, because the (5) Finally we can distinguish secondary theory of automatic repetition has exercised effects of behaviour besides those immediately so great an influence. related to the goal ; they consist most usually in (2) The concept of unconscious emotional modifications of the personality and sometimes attitude is equally vague. Such a definition in external events, which are associated in a less implies that, if transferred emotional attitudes are visible manner with the activity of the subject. unconscious, it is because they have not been able These distinctions permit a precise definition to develop, or because they have been repressed of the significance of behaviour. Behaviour and have for this reason retained the dynamic being the organized whole of responses through power of the repressed emotions and needs. which the personality modifies its interaction (3) The classification of emotional attitudes with the environment, its significance and into those of love, hate, and ambivalence is a function lies in the ability with which its actions rather general one, and does little justice to the reduce motivation (tension, dissociation) and more specific features of the transferred emo­ help the personality to realize its potentialities. tional attitude. Let us see how this schema of the segment In considering transference as a concrete and of behaviour can be applied to the problem of active piece of behaviour Freud indicated a transference: solution whose importance we can now better (1) Every distinct movement can be learned assess thanks to the progress of psychology. and transferred; the concepts of instinct fixa­ Transference is a specific way in which the tion, object fixation, and goal fixation are patient behaves in the psycho-analytical situa­ familiar to us all; although the concept of tion ; it is a segment of behaviour. We could, instrumental fixation has not been formulated therefore, in principle, apply to it the general it is often employed under the name of social notions regarded as applicable to an understand­ techniques; for instance, a patient shows ing of all segments of behaviour. himself submissive in order to be loved. SOME ASPECTS OF TRANSFERENCE 3 (2) In psycho-analytic practice we frequently the repetitive character of transference by his understand as transference partial aspects of use of various expressions (cliché, stéréotype). behaviour, either because transference has Transference is the result both of resistance developed only slightly, as if in outline, or which replaces remembering by repetition in because there are not enough data: we see acting out, and of the dynamic unconscious, clearly that a part of the analysand’s behaviour that is to say of frustrated and repressed ten­ reproduces his older attitudes, but we do not dencies which are4 ready for transference ’ (Coll. understand why. Papers, II, 321). Readiness for transference and (3) A complete interpretation of transference the acting out of repetition are explained in demands of the analyst that he respond to each terms of the Pleasure Principle. question corresponding to its different facets. From 1914 onwards Freud was led to stress (4) It is essential that an interpretation seize the compulsive character of the repetition in upon the functional significance of any piece of transference (Coll. Papers, II, 336). However, behaviour under review. It will remain dynamic it was only in Beyond the Pleasure Principle that if we adhere to th e4 here and now \ It becomes repetition was regarded not only as a descriptive developmental to the extent to which it can category but as the very origin of transference. show how the past has realized itself in the The essence of Freud’s argument in Chapter III present in terms of psycho-analytical situations.