Sigmund Freud: Conflict & Culture
Exploded Manuscript: Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis—Transference

Translation

We overcome the transference by pointing out to the patient that his feelings do not arise from the present situation and do not apply to the person of the doctor, but that they are repeating something that happened to him earlier. In this way we oblige him to transform his repetition into a memory.

Sigmund Freud, 1916-17

Curator's Comments

Patients transfer feelings from the past (usually about parents) onto the analyst. The transfer of the analyst's feelings onto the patient is known as counter-transference. According to psychoanalytic theory, when patients remember the past, they are no longer obliged to unconsciously repeat it.