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Episode 6 – Transference
What is transference, really? Is it a bond, a projection, a repetition — or something more structural?
In this episode, Neil Gorman and Isolda Alvarez explore transference from a Lacanian orientation: the analyst as function rather than person, the subject supposed to know, unconscious certainty, and the role of jouissance in shaping how we relate to others. Through clinical examples — including fighting as a mode of relating and the “test” of the analyst — they discuss how repetition encounters something new in analysis, creating the possibility for change.
They also begin circling a provocative question to be taken up next time: Is being a psychoanalyst actually easier than people think?
Watch out for that certainty.
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The Article Neil referred to, about each analyst being the product of their own cure was:
The Rhinoceros and the Desire of the Analyst, by Bruno de Halleux, in Psychoanalytical Notebooks 36.
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The Article Neil referred to, about each analyst being the product of their own cure was:
The Rhinoceros and the Desire of the Analyst, by Bruno de Halleux, in Psychoanalytical Notebooks 36.
01:18 Why Talk Transference
01:54 Defining Transference Lacanian
03:48 Engine and Obstacle
05:04 Analyst Function Not Person
05:44 Bond Versus Transference
09:03 Unconscious and Supposed Know
11:05 Jouissance Gaze and Voice
14:04 Reading the Analyst Role
18:26 Case Example Fighting
22:12 Repetition Meets New Response
23:13 Unthought Knowns
26:01 Certainty Becomes Suffering
27:06 Finding the Hidden Knowledge
27:47 Transference Reveals the Script
29:17 Analyst Desire and Curiosity
30:27 Patients Testing the Analyst
33:14 Analyst as Enigma Function
34:33 Weed Case and Nonjudgment
37:56 Analyst Subjectivity and Cure
41:48 Questioning Certainties and Jouissance
44:36 Next Episode and Closing
Creators and Guests
What is Subject of the Unconscious?
A podcast where there are relaxed but serious conversations about Lacanian psychoanalysis and the way it affects (and is affected by) the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real today.
SOU 006 – Transference (Edited Transcript)
Neil:
All right. This is The Subject of the Unconscious, a podcast created by me and my compatriot, Isolda Alvarez. My name is Neil Gorman. Say hello, Isolda.
Isolda:
Hello everybody. Thank you so much for listening. Hi, Neil.
Neil:
It’s really good to be doing this. We released our most recent episode in the past couple of days, and my plan right now is to release this episode on Thursday before the Clinical Study Days, so people have something to listen to on the airplane.
I do all the behind-the-scenes post-production work, which is time-consuming. If I have the time, I’ll get it done. But we’re here now, and we have a couple of topics we were chatting about before I hit the record button.
The first topic, which you suggested in our last episode, is transference — the experience of transference. So I’m going to kick it over to you to pontificate away, and we’ll see what happens.
⸻
What Is Transference?
Isolda:
Yes, we’ll see. I keep having ideas about what to talk about. I was thinking it would be important — or at least interesting — to try to discuss what transference is.
First, it’s not an easy concept. But beyond being a concept, it’s also an experience, which we’ve been discussing in previous episodes. Depending on the approach — social work, mental health, psychology — the bond between patient and therapist has different names. It’s called the bond, the link, the therapeutic alliance, and so on.
But I think it’s important to pinpoint what transference means from a Lacanian orientation. Even within the psychodynamic world, there are different definitions and terms describing the relationship between a patient and a therapist.
To define it briefly: transference is a link established between analyst and analysand in which the analysand offers a position to the analyst. The analyst occupies a place for the analysand. And it has two sides — as the expression goes, “two sides of the same coin.”
Transference is the engine that drives a psychoanalytic treatment, but it can also be an obstacle. I once had a patient who told me that talking to me reminded him of talking to an aunt — an important aunt in his life. He said there were things he felt ashamed to tell me. In that sense, transference was an obstacle. But it was also useful, because he felt comfortable enough to speak.
Transference changes over the course of treatment. It’s not fixed. The analyst does not simply occupy “the father position” and remain there. It’s versatile. It shifts, takes new forms.
Historically, there was also the concept of countertransference. In the Lacanian orientation, we don’t use that term in the same way. The analyst is not there as a person in an intersubjective exchange; ideally, the analyst occupies a function.
What do you think, Neil?
⸻
Bond or Transference First?
Neil:
A few things came to mind. First: what comes first — the bond or the transference?
Some people come with a transference already in place before they’ve ever met you. They assume you know something. They place you in the position of the subject supposed to know. That can exist prior to any bond.
Other times, there’s already some kind of relationship — perhaps through supervision, study days, conferences — and that bond produces transference.
I don’t know if there’s a universal answer, but it’s an interesting question.
Second, when I think about transference, I think about its unconscious component. We can speak about transference as a concept, but what makes it powerful is its unconscious dimension.
When your patient said you were like an aunt, that was conscious. But what about the unconscious component? That’s what the patient cannot articulate. That’s what they cannot say.
⸻
Unconscious Knowledge and the Subject Supposed to Know
Isolda:
I agree. When I speak of a bond, I mean something unconscious. My patient only articulated the “aunt” association months into treatment. Underneath that was the mother. That was the unconscious layer.
Transference always has an opaque side. People often can’t explain why they chose one analyst and not another. There is always something unconscious there.
The subject supposed to know is central. The patient supposes the analyst knows how to end suffering, how to resolve problems. But there’s also jouissance circulating — the object gaze, the object voice. For example, “I want you to see me” — that involves the gaze. “I want to be heard by you” — that involves the voice.
Transference touches the body. It produces effects.
⸻
The Analyst as Function
Neil:
Let me restate something. Ideally, the transference is not to a person but to a function. Of course, we are persons, but in the analytic setting, we occupy a function.
Patients are not relating to us as they would to a friend or family member. They form a bond to the analyst as an object or a function.
Some seek recognition — tied to the gaze. Others seek authorization — tied to the voice. They want permission.
The challenge is discerning what function they’re trying to place you in. That’s part of tracking transference.
⸻
Fighting as Transference
Isolda:
Yes. Transference is unique in each case.
For example, I had a patient who spent months fighting the treatment: “This is the worst. I don’t like it. I don’t know why I keep coming.”
On the surface, that looks like treatment failure. But within a psychoanalytic framework, the fighting revealed how she relates to others. Fighting was her mode of relating. So she had to fight with the analyst too.
Eventually, she realized: “The only way I knew how to relate was through fighting.”
This relates to Lacan’s discussion in Seminar XI about repetition and transference. Repetition finds “the same.” But in analysis, repetition encounters a different response. That difference can fracture the repetition.
⸻
Unconscious Certainty and Drive
Neil:
Let me describe how I think about this.
We accumulate knowledge as we move through life. Some of it is conscious. Some is unconscious — what Christopher Bollas calls “unthought knowns.”
A patient might unconsciously “know” that everyone will betray them. They don’t say it directly, but they enact it. They form relationships that confirm it.
This certainty fuels the drive. They prove the knowledge again and again.
Transference reveals this. What position do they place the analyst in? What certainty is being enacted?
The desire of the analyst is not about having answers, but about remaining curious about that certainty.
⸻
Testing the Analyst
Isolda:
Yes. Patients test you. Not consciously, but structurally.
They may try to provoke anger. They may repeatedly reschedule, seeking a reaction. They’re testing whether you will confirm their certainty.
And there is jouissance in this repetition.
The analyst must discover the position being offered. Transference is not chosen consciously; it is discovered.
⸻
The Weed Example
Isolda:
I had a patient whose mother wanted him to stop smoking marijuana. He spoke endlessly about it, waiting for me to condemn him.
When I didn’t take a position, he was shocked. He asked why I wasn’t concerned.
That non-position allowed him to question: Is this my concern, or my mother’s?
Eventually, as he worked on what truly concerned him, the marijuana use decreased.
⸻
Is Being an Analyst Easy?
Neil:
Let’s save that for the next episode. I once claimed that being a psychoanalyst is easier than people think.
Isolda:
I completely disagree.
⸻
Analyst Subjectivity
Neil:
Before we close: analysts are products of their own cure. We are subjects. We have symptoms and unconscious processes.
That’s why formation requires one’s own analysis and supervision. We can’t eliminate subjectivity, but we can become aware of it and limit its interference in the analytic function.
After analysis, we become more suspicious of our certainties. Instead of acting on them, we can pause.
⸻
Final Thoughts
Isolda:
We are human. We have biases and jouissance. But ideally, we do not use our personal position to guide treatment.
Transference opens another dimension. It allows the invention of new ways of relating to oneself and to others.
The invitation of psychoanalysis is to question what seems unquestionable.
⸻
Neil:
There’s still more to say, but we’ll stop here. Thank you for listening. Watch out for that certainty.
Isolda:
Thank you, Neil. Thank you, everyone listening. We’ll see what comes next.
Neil:
Take care.
Isolda:
Bye.