Pre-transference, transference, and countertransference

This chapter outlines the psychoanalytic concepts of pre-transference, transference, and countertransference. Transference and countertransference are psychoanalytic concepts that are used to describe the feelings evoked between the client and the therapist. Transference includes the feelings a client holds for those who are most intimate to them and how they were treated by them. A. Curry has extended the concept of transference to the concept of “pre-transference”, or “societal transference”. Similarly, countertransference refers to the way the therapist may also place, or, in psychoanalytic terms, project, their own feelings on to the client, or the way in which their own feelings can be triggered by a similar emotional experience to that of their client. The transference is highly charged with racial and cultural history dynamics. Dynamic psychotherapy should recognize the influence of culture and ethnicity regarding the patient’s emotional problems”.