Negative transference is the psychoanalytic term for the

transference Transference (german: Übertragung) is a phenomenon within psychotherapy in which the "feelings, attitudes, or desires" a person had about one thing are subconsciously projected onto the here-and-now Other. It usually concerns feelings from ...

of negative and hostile feelings, rather than positive ones, onto a therapist (or other emotional object).

Freud's preference

In his pioneering studies of transference phenomena,

Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...

noted the existence of both positive and negative transferences, while expressing a preference for the former, which he initially saw as a prerequisite for analytic work. Freud considered that "The hostile feelings make their appearance as a rule later than the affectionate ones and behind them"; and more frequently in same-sex than in mixed-sex analytic pairings.

Otto Fenichel Otto Fenichel (2 December 1897 in Vienna – 22 January 1946 in Los Angeles) was a psychoanalyst of the so-called "second generation". Education and psychoanalytic affiliations Otto Fenichel started studying medicine in 1915 in Vienna. Already ...

pointed out that whereas neurotic aggravations can follow the emergence of a negative transference, so too (paradoxically) can improvements: the patient gets better to spite the therapist for emphasising the patient's problems.

Later formulations

Melanie Klein in her disputes with Anna Freud laid much greater emphasis than her opponent on the constructive role to be played by interpreting the negative transference. Jacques Lacan followed her theoretical lead in seeing "the projection of what Melanie Klein calls ''bad internal objects''" as key to "the negative transference that is the initial knot of the analytic drama" - though he himself would face criticism for glossing over the negative transference in training analyses, to keep his analysands in dependence. W. R. D. Fairbairn was also more interested in the negative than the positive transference, which he saw as a key to the

repetition Repetition may refer to: *Repetition (rhetorical device), repeating a word within a short space of words * Repetition (bodybuilding), a single cycle of lifting and lowering a weight in strength training *Working title for the 1985 slasher film '' ...

and exposure of unconscious attachments to internalised bad objects. In his wake, object relations theorists have tended to stress the positive results that can emerge from working with the negative transference.

Technical blocks

* Fritz Wittels considered the brevity of

Wilhelm Stekel Wilhelm Stekel (; 18 March 1868 – 25 June 1940) was an Austrian physician and psychologist, who became one of Sigmund Freud's earliest followers, and was once described as "Freud's most distinguished pupil". According to Ernest Jones, "Stekel ...

's analyses to be due to his

narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism exists on a co ...

being unable to endure the emergence of the negative transference. * Rollo May saw the flaw in person-centered therapy as a pervasive reluctance to deal with the negative transference.

Literary analogues

Describing the process of becoming the focus of a paranoid's hostility, C. P. Snow wrote: "No one likes being hated: most of us are afraid of it: it jars to the bone when we meet hatred face to face."C. P. Snow, ''Corridors of Power'' (1975) p. 131

References

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External links