The Transference Trance

When the past is present in our relationships

Transference, a definition - When we transfer the past on to the present moment. When we see, hear, feel, believe and make up stories about a person or group of people, and react to them based on echoes from our past, rather than what is actually happening in the here and now.

The concept of transference originally emerged from the work of Sigmund Freud back in the 1890’s as part of his psychoanalytical approach in therapy. It was believed to be an important part of the therapeutic process, whereby a client would transfer unresolved feelings and beliefs from their past onto the therapist, creating an opportunity for growth and healing to occur (if handled skilfully and worked with, within the therapy sessions).

However, it has since been expanded upon within the field of Psychology, and is more widely believed to be a more everyday occurrence. People in our lives will unconsciously remind us of important figures from our past (often our parents or other significant authority figures from childhood, like teachers or bullies), and if we have unresolved issues still remaining from that time, we will react (transfer) on to the person who is in front of us in the present moment.

A common example might be when we are triggered into feeling abandoned by a partner, if they appear to be unavailable to us for some reason, like working late. They might come home stressed and exhausted, to find us behaving angrily or resentfully towards them. We might then start to behave very childishly, like a 5 year old, which was perhaps the age we were when the original abandonment wound was created, (behaving very childishly is another clue btw).

“Transference is essentially a compulsion to return to our past in order to clear up emotionally backlogged business.” David Richo

If we do our inner work we come to recognise that our reaction to their lateness is disproportionate, because there is an old wound being triggered. There’s a well known saying in the therapy world, “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical”, meaning if our reactions are over the top, there is usually a connection with something unresolved from our history. When we ‘follow the trail’ backwards to the past, ideally with the help of a therapist, we will often land upon the source of our original abandonment wounding. For example, when we were 5 years old and our parents split up, resulting in our father leaving the family home very suddenly.

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Transference Trance

Sometimes couples can spend their whole relationship unable to truly see who is standing in front of them. Who they are living, loving or arguing with. They are too busy transferring significant people from their past over the top of their partner (usually their parents). I call this the ‘transference trance’. It’s a bit like placing a giant cardboard cut out of your controlling dad or smothering mum from your childhood in front of your partner. You can never really meet them from an adult place, nor see them for who they actually are, but instead experience and react to a cardboard cut out ghost from way back when you were still a wounded child.

‘You do not see who I am, but who you need me to be’ Donna Lancaster

The thing about transference is it’s also not gender specific so your female partner can remind you of your critical father, or even a mixture of both of your parents. Many people get married (positive transference) and then divorced (negative transference) without realising they are just re-enacting their childhood story and wounds with each other, therefore missing the rich opportunities for healing, growth and resolution.

Our inner work is to heal those ruptures from the past so that we can wake up from this trance, move aside the cardboard cut out from the past, and finally meet the actual person who is standing in front of us, asking us to love them. 

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Breaking the Spell of the Transference Trance

Below is an example of what is possible in the process of healing transference in relationships. Of course this is not a ‘one size fits all’ model here, so it may or may not resonate for you. It’s simply an offering which might support you to gain a deeper understanding in your own relationships. Stay curious…

Stage 1: Positive Transference - The Beginning

We meet someone and feel an immediate connection with them, they seem very familiar to us, like we’ve known them all our life. (the word familiar relates to family remember?) We believe they have all the qualities we long for in a partner or wish to have in ourselves. We can elevate them into a position of greatness through our stories, putting them on a pedestal and giving them a lot of our power. If we dare to admit it, they feel like the parent we always wanted. ‘Oh she’s so amazing, I’ve never met anyone like her, she’s so so special…"‘

Stage 2: Negative Transference - The Middle

We start to see the cracks. They behave in ways that do not fit with the stories we have made up about them. (The nerve!) They dare to show all of their flawed (whole) selves to us. In reality they are simply being who they are, not who we needed them to be. Their crown slips and they eventually tumble from the pedestal we have put them on, face down into the dirt. How disappointing. Unconsciously reminding us of other people (usually parents) who have behaved in similar ways. We are now looking down on them, rather than up. “You’re not who I thought you were….” (Aint that the truth?!)

Stage 3: Our Inner Work - Beyond Blame and Victimhood

We stop pointing the finger and slowly recognise that the issue is with ourselves. We start our inner work to process our past so that we can see more clearly in the present. We begin to address the original source of our wounds rather than focusing on the ‘understudy’ of our partners/friends/bosses/therapists.

Stage 4: Meeting as Equals - Growing Up

We know our work has paid off when we can see this person in their wholeness, with all of their wonderful positive qualities alongside all of their ‘negative’ traits. We can see them simply as human, just like us. We view them not from the position of looking up towards a pedestal (above us) neither looking down in to the dirt (below us), but rather as our equal, standing side by side. Perfectly imperfect, just like us. 

Stage 5: Oneness - The Awakening

Not everyone reaches this fifth stage, but this is when we see that our partner/friend/boss/therapist, or whomever we travelled the transference journey with, is in fact simply a mirror and indeed a part of us, as we are of them. They have been our greatest Spiritual teachers to allow us to finally come to recognise the oneness and perfection of it all. That there is no ‘them or me’, only one consciousness, one Love. This fifth stage offers the spiritual dimension to our relationships, and within this stage comes true freedom. 

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Authentic Intimacy

“A touching fact about us is that we seem hard-wired to replay the past, especially when it includes emotional pain or disappointment. We tend to go through life simply casting new people in the roles of key people, such as our parents or past partners with whom there is still unfinished business. This phenomenon, called transference, is unconscious.

What we transfer are feelings, needs, expectations, defences, fantasies, beliefs, and attitudes. Transference can be our way of telling the untold story inside us. We can learn to notice clues about how our past is still very much alive in our present relationships. When we clear up our old business we can learn to form healthy relationships that no longer have to replicate the past. Then authentic intimacy can bloom.” David Richo, When the past is present

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Some Relationship Lessons

Here’s a few things I’ve learned which may or may not be true for you…..

• Neither your partner, friends nor family are mind readers - you need to learn how to express your feelings and ask for your needs to be met.

• Never make a big decision about any relationship when you are in a highly charged, triggered or exhausted state. 

• Silence can be used as the cruellest weapon.  

• All relationships involve ‘relating’. The clue is in the word….

• Violence in relationships doesn’t just mean the physical. Plenty of people are violent to each other with their words or their silence.

• If someone in your life has a reaction when you say no to their request, that’s not a request, that’s a demand. Same goes for you.

• You are having relationships with both an adult and a child. It’s helpful to know which part of them you are relating to in any given moment. 

• When two inner children get into an argument, it rarely ends well.

• Excessive criticism and judgment are a form of abuse. 

• We all say nasty things we don’t mean sometimes. It’s a language called ‘hurt’.

• Some people externalise their feelings and others internalise theirs. Both are ok. These two types are drawn to each other like moths to a flame. 

• Sarcastic humour ‘I was only joking!’ is just passive aggression wearing a clowns nose.

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