We do not work with the “transference to the analyst,” but against it and in spite of it. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, par. 601.

But as, through progressive analysis, she became conscious of the nature of her transference, the dreams began to materialize. They brought up bits of the collective unconscious, and that was the end of her infantile world and of all the heroics. She came to herself and to her own real potentialities ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 248

But as the influence of the collective unconscious increases, so the conscious mind loses its power of leadership. Imperceptibly it becomes the led, while an unconscious and impersonal process gradually takes control. Thus, without noticing it, the conscious personality is pushed about like a figure on a chess-board by an invisible player. It is this player who decides the game of fate, not the conscious mind and its plans. This is how the resolution of the transference, apparently so impossible to the conscious mind, was brought about [in my patient. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 251

These mythological statements, coming from within the Christian sphere as well as from outside it, adumbrate an archetype that expresses itself in essentially the same symbolism and also occurs in individual dreams or in fantasy-like projections upon living people (transference phenomena, hero-worship, etc.). The content of all such symbolic products is the idea of an overpowering, all-embracing, complete or perfect being, represented either by a man of heroic proportions, or by an animal with magical attributes, or by a magical vessel or some other “treasure hard to attain,” such as a jewel, ring, crown, or, geometrically, by a mandala. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 230

This is evident first of all from the use of “Rosarium” or “Rosarius” (rose-gardener) as a book title. The first Rosarium (there are several), first printed in 1550, is for the greater part ascribed to Arnaldus de Villanova. It is a compilation whose historical components have not yet been sorted out. Arnaldus lived in the second half of the thirteenth century. He is also credited with the Rosarium cum figuris, where the rose is the symbol of relationship between king and queen. The reader will find a detailed account of this in my “Psychology of the Transference,” which reproduces the Rosarium illustrations. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 387

The transference phenomenon is without doubt one of the most important syndromes in the process of individuation; its wealth of meanings goes far beyond mere personal likes and dislikes. By virtue of its collective contents and symbols it transcends the individual personality and extends into the social sphere, reminding us of those higher human relationships which are so painfully absent in our present social order, or rather disorder. ~Carl Jung, CW 16 Para 539

This bond is often of such intensity that we could almost speak of a “combination.” When two chemical substances combine, both are altered. This is precisely what happens in the transference. Freud rightly recognized that this bond is of the greatest therapeutic importance in that it gives rise to a mixtum compositum of the doctor’s own mental health and the patient’s maladjustment. In Freudian technique the doctor tries to ward off the transference as much as possible which is understandable enough from the human point of view, though in certain cases it may considerably impair the therapeutic effect. It is inevitable that the doctor should be influenced to a certain extent and even that his nervous health should suffer. He quite literally “takes over” the sufferings of his patient and shares them with him. For this reason he runs a risk and must run it in the nature of things CW 16 Para 358

The enormous importance that Freud attached to the transference phenomenon became clear to me at our first personal meeting in 1907. After a conversation lasting many hours there came a pause. Suddenly he asked me out of the blue, “And what do you think about the transference?” I replied with the deepest conviction that it was the alpha and omega of the analytical method, whereupon he said, “Then you have grasped the main thing” CW 16 Para 358

The great importance of the transference has often led to the mistaken idea that it is absolutely indispensable for a cure, that it must be demanded from the patient, so to speak. But a thing like that can no more be demanded than faith, which is only valuable when it is spontaneous. Enforced faith is nothing but spiritual cramp. Anyone who thinks that he must “demand” a transference is forgetting that this is only one of the therapeutic factors, and that the very word “transference” is closely akin to “projection” a phenomenon that cannot possibly be demanded. I personally am always glad when there is only a mild transference or when it is practically unnoticeable. Far less claim is then made upon one as a person, and one can be satisfied with other therapeutically effective factors. Among these the patient’s own insight plays an important part, also his goodwill, the doctor’s authority, suggestion, good advice, understanding, sympathy, encouragement, etc. Naturally the more serious cases do not come into this category. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 359

Careful analysis of the transference phenomenon yields an extremely complicated picture with such startlingly pronounced features that we are often tempted to pick out one of them as the most important and then exclaim by way of explanation: “Of course, it’s nothing but!” I am referring chiefly to the erotic or sexual aspect of transference fantasies. The existence of this aspect is undeniable, but it is not always the only and not always the essential one. Another is the will to power (described by Adler), which proves to be coexistent with sexuality, and it is often very difficult to make out which of the two predominates. These two aspects alone offer sufficient grounds for a paralysing conflict. ~Carl Jung, CW 16 Para 360

Not only are there different instincts which cannot forcibly be reduced to one another, there are also different levels on which they move. In view of this far from simple situation, it is small wonder that the transference also an instinctive process, in partis very difficult to interpret and evaluate. The instincts and their specific fantasy-contents are partly concrete, partly symbolical (i.e., “unreal”), sometimes one, sometimes the other, and they have the same paradoxical character when they are projected. The transference is far from being a simple phenomenon with only one meaning, and we can never make out beforehand what it is all about. The same applies to its specific content, commonly called incest. We know that it is possible to interpret the fantasy-contents of the instincts either as signs, as self-portraits of the instincts, i.e., reductively; or as symbols, as the spiritual meaning of the natural instinct. In the former case the instinctive process is taken to be “real” and in the latter “unreal” ~Carl Jung, CW 16 Para 362

I said earlier that the contents which enter into the transference were as a rule originally projected upon the parents or other members of the family. Owing to the fact that these contents seldom or never lack an erotic aspect or are genuinely sexual in substance (apart from the other factors already mentioned), an incestuous character does undoubtedly attach to them, and this has given rise to the Freudian theory of incest. Their exogamous transference to the doctor does not alter the situation. He is merely drawn into the peculiar atmosphere of family incest through the projection. This necessarily leads to an unreal intimacy which is highly distressing to both doctor and patient and arouses resistance and doubt on both sides. ~Carl Jung, CW 16 Para 368

The existence of the incest element involves not only an intellectual difficulty but, worst of all, an emotional complication of the therapeutic situation. It is the hiding place for all the most secret, painful, intense, delicate, shamefaced, timorous, grotesque, unmoral, and at the same time the most sacred feelings which go to make up the incredible and inexplicable wealth of human relationships and give them their compelling power. Like the tentacles of an octopus they twine themselves invisibly round parents and children and, through the transference, round doctor and patient. This binding force shows itself in the irresistible strength and obstinacy of the neurotic symptom and in the patient’s desperate clinging to the world of infancy or to the doctor. The word “possession” describes this state in a way that could hardly be bettered. ~Carl Jung, CW 16 Para 371

The transference, however, alters the psychological stature of the doctor, though this is at first imperceptible to him. He too becomes affected and has as much difficulty in distinguishing between the patient and what has taken possession of him as has the patient himself. This leads both of them to a direct confrontation with the daemonic forces lurking in the darkness. The resultant paradoxical blend of positive and negative, of trust and fear, of hope and doubt, of attraction and repulsion, is characteristic of the initial relationship. It is the (hate and love) of the elements, which the alchemists likened to the primeval chaos. The activated unconscious appears as a flurry of unleashed opposites and calls forth the attempt to reconcile them, so that, in the words of the alchemists, the great panacea, the medicina catholica, may be born. ~Carl Jung, CW 16 Para 375

It must be emphasized that in alchemy the dark initial state or nigredo is often regarded as the product of a previous operation, and that it therefore does not represent the absolute beginning. Similarly, the psychological parallel to the nigredo is the result of the foregoing preliminary talk which, at a certain moment, sometimes long delayed, “touches” the unconscious and establishes the unconscious identity of doctor and patient. This moment may be perceived and registered consciously, but generally it happens outside consciousness and the bond thus established is only recognized later and indirectly by its results. Occasionally dreams occur about this time, announcing the appearance of the transference. For instance, a dream may say that a fire has started in the cellar, or that a burglar has broken in, or that the patient’s father has died, or it may depict an erotic or some other ambiguous situation. From the moment when such a dream occurs there may be initiated a queer unconscious time-reckoning, lasting for months or even longer. ~Carl Jung, CW 16 Para 376

This case, and more particularly the last image, is a classical example of the kind of symbolism which marks the onset of the transference. Noah’s dove (the emblem of reconciliation), the incarnatio Dei, the union of God with matter for the purpose of begetting the redeemer, the serpent path, the Sushumna representing the line midway between sun and moon all this is the first, anticipatory stage of an as-yet-unfulfilled programme that culminates in the union of opposites. This union is analogous to the “royal marriage” in alchemy. The prodromal events signify the meeting or collision of various opposites and can therefore appropriately be called chaos and blackness. ~Carl Jung, CW 16 Para 381

Cases where the archetypal problem of the transference becomes acute are by no means always “serious” cases, i.e., grave states of illness. There are of course such cases among them, but there are also mild neuroses, or simply psychological difficulties which we would be at a loss to diagnose. Curiously enough, it is these latter cases that present the doctor with the most difficult problems. Often the persons concerned endure unspeakable suffering without developing any neurotic symptoms that would entitle them to be called ill. We can only call it an intense suffering, a passion of the soul but not a disease of the mind. ~Carl Jung, CW 16 Para 382

Medical treatment of the transference gives the patient a priceless opportunity to withdraw his projections, to make good his losses, and to integrate his personality. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 420.

These images are naturally only anticipations of a wholeness which is, in principle, always just beyond our reach. Also, they do not invariably indicate a subliminal readiness on the part of the patient to realize that wholeness consciously, at a later stage; often they mean no more than a temporary compensation of chaotic confusion.  ~Carl Jung, CW 16, para 536.

The Transference Phenomenon is an inevitable feature of every thorough analysis… ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Par. 283.

The transference is far from being a simple phenomenon with only one meaning, and we can never make out beforehand what it is all about. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 362.

“Initial dreams are often amazingly lucid and clear-cut. But as the work of analysis progresses, the dreams tend to lose their clarity. If by way of exception, they keep it we can be sure that analysis has not yet touched on some important layer of the personality. As a rule, dreams get more and more opaque and blurred soon after the beginning of the treatment, and this makes the interpretation increasingly difficult. A further difficulty is that a point may soon be reached where, if the truth be told, the doctor no longer understands the situation as a whole. That he does not understand is proved by the fact that the dreams become increasingly obscure, for we all know that “obscurity” is a purely subjective opinion of the doctor. To the understanding nothing is obscure; it is only when we do not understand that things appear unintelligible and muddled. In themselves dreams are naturally clear; that is, they are what they must be under the circumstances. If, from a later stage of treatment or from a distance of some years, we look back at these unintelligible dreams, we are often astounded at our own blindness. Thus when, as the analysis proceeds, we come upon dreams that are strikingly obscure in comparison with the illuminating initial dreams, the doctor should not be too ready to accuse the dreams of confusion or the patient of deliberate resistance; he would do better to take these findings as a sign of his growing inability to understand  – just as the psychiatrist who calls his patient “confused” should recognize that this is a projection and should rather call himself confused, because in reality it is he whose wits are confused by the patient’s peculiar behaviour. Moreover it is therapeutically very important for the doctor to admit his lack of understanding in time, for nothing is more unbearable to the patient than to be always understood. He relies far too much anyway on the mysterious powers of the doctor and, by appealing to his professional vanity, lays a dangerous trap for him. By taking refuge in the doctor’s self-confidence and “profound” understanding, the patient loses all sense of reality, falls into a stubborn transference, and retards the cure. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 313

When, therefore, I am treating practising Catholics, and am faced with the transference problem, I can, by virtue of my office as a doctor, step aside and lead the problem over to the Church. But if I am treating a non-Catholic, that way out is debarred, and by virtue of my office as a doctor I cannot step aside, for there is as a rule nobody there, nothing towards which I could suitably lead the father-imago. I can, of course, get the patient to recognize with his reason that I am not the father. But by that very act I become the reasonable father and remain despite everything the father. Not only nature, but the patient too, abhors a vacuum. He has an instinctive horror of allowing the parental imagos and his childhood psyche to fall into nothingness, into a hopeless past that has no future. His instinct tells him that, for the sake of his own wholeness, these things must be kept alive in one form or another. He knows that a complete withdrawal of the projection will be followed by an apparently endless isolation within the ego, which is all the more burdensome because he has so little love for it. He found it unbearable enough before, and he is unlikely to bear it now simply out of sweet reasonableness. Therefore at this juncture the Catholic who has been freed from an excessively personal tie to his parents can return fairly easily to the mysteries of the Church, which he is now in a position to understand better and more deeply. There are also Protestants who can discover in one of the newer variants of Protestantism a meaning which appeals to them, and so regain a genuine religious attitude. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 218

By transference the doctor appears in the guise of the father, for instance, as that personality who symbolizes superior power and intelligence, a guarantee of security and a protection against overwhelming dangers. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1330

In Hindu literature you also find the terms padma (lotus) and chakra, meaning the flowerlike centres of different localizations of consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 1331

The dissolution of the transference often consists in ceasing to describe the nature of one’s relationship as “transference.” This designation degrades the relationship to a mere projection, which it is not. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 475.

“Transference” consists in the illusion of its uniqueness, when seen from the collective and conventional standpoint. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 475

Also my little book on transference is to appear soon. It’s a risky business, but when you are old you can say more than when life is still ahead. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 439.

The feminine mind is the earth waiting for the seed. That is the meaning of the transference. Always the more unconscious person gets spiritually fecundated by the more conscious one. Hence the guru in India. This is an age-old truth. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 172.

As soon as certain patients come to me for treatment, the type of dream changes. In the deepest sense we all dream not out of ourselves but out of what lies between us and the other. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 172.

As a rule, you haven’t to take care of making patients revive their infantile reminiscences; generally they produce it all by themselves, because it is an unavoidable mechanism, and, as I said, a teleological attempt to grow up again. If you go quietly along with the material the patients produce, you will see that they can’t help getting into their infantile reminiscences and habits and ways, and that they project particularly the parental images. Wherever there is a transference, you get unavoidably involved and integrated into the patient’s family atmosphere. The insistence of the Freudians upon making people revive their past simply shows that in the Freudian analysis people don’t naturally take to living their past again, simply because they have resistance against the analyst. If you let the unconscious have its natural way, then you may be sure everything the patient needs to know will be brought up, and you may be equally sure that everything you bring out from the patient by insistence on theoretical grounds will not be integrated into the patient’s personality, at least not as a positive value, but maybe as a lasting resistance. Did it never occur to you that in my analysis we talked very little of “resistance,” while in the Freudian analysis it is the term that most frequently occurs? ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 148.

The healing function is not necessarily a characteristic of individuation; it is a thing in itself. It also doesn’t work exclusively through transference; that is a Freudian prejudice. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 228.

A transference in the clinical sense does not always need a personal relationship as a bridge, but can take place via a book, a piece of hearsay, or a legend. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 504

Heartiest thanks for your two excellent articles. “The Dynamics of Transference” is of extraordinary value for the analyst. ~Carl Jung, Freud/Jung Letters, Vol. 1, Page 486

The main problem of medical psychotherapy is the transference. In this matter Freud and I were in complete agreement. ~Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections, Page 212

The feminine mind is earth which awaits the seed. This is the meaning of transference. Carl Jung, Jung-Kirsch Letters, Page 63

Inwardly, I find the transference problem and the Mysterium Coniunctionis the most difficult of all, and almost impossible to master. ~James Kirsch, Jung-Kirsch Letters, Page 251

People have a transference to their analyst because they suppose that he is in possession of the treasure. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 319

Relationships must be fostered as far as possible and maintained, and thus a morbid transference can be avoided. ~Carl Jung; Cornwall Seminar; Page 5.

Introvert and Extrovert: The introvert discovers the possibility of being extroverted in the transference. The extrovert draws back on himself; he will become aware of the possibility of experiencing himself. The introvert discovers himself by learning the possibility of pouring himself out to the analyst. It is a discovery of his unconscious. ~Carl Jung; Cornwall Seminar; Page 8.

One of the books most frequently quoted by Jung is the anonymous Rosarium philosophorum; it was first published in Frankfurt in 1550 and is also contained in the second volume of Artis Auriferae. Jung’s monograph “The Psychology of the Transference” ~Carl Jung, Jung’s Last Years, Page 50

“The conventional guises are dropped and the true man comes to light. He is in very truth reborn from this psychological relationship. [Transference]” ~Carl Jung, Jung’s Last Years, Page 67.

As the analysis proceeded, a strong transference and countertransference developed between Mary and Jung. The growing strength of the transference and countertransference can be seen in the quality of the subsequent correspondence and in the signatures. ~William Schoenl – C.G. Jung-His Friendships with Mary Mellon & J.B. Priestley, Page 7

She signed the letter: All my love to you, Mary. The letter and the dream together indicate that in her transference Mary projected images of father, lover, and modern prophet on Jung.  ~William Schoenl – C.G. Jung-His Friendships with Mary Mellon & J.B. Priestley, Page 15

I then told him of my transference to Wolff and how I hated her saying she was not seeing me again, and how I finally asked her to dinner; that at first she was cold then said she would come. Jung said that Wolff had certainly released my feeling.  ~Katy Cabot, Jung My Mother and I, Page 99

Very early in their work together Jung appears in Peter’s dream and it is clear that a powerful transference has already begun.  ~Diana Baynes, Jung’s Apprentice, Page 128

Jung felt that the contact with analysands outside the sessions, during conferences or at social gatherings, was often the most helpful of all. But with so many transferences floating around it created a somewhat incestuous situation, with everyone vying with one another for Jung’s attention.  ~Diana Baynes, Jung’s Apprentice, Page 229

At times it was a difficult and subjective experience not unlike an analysis, for it seemed that I had made a transference to the Stone in the way an analysand transfers expectations for a basic change onto the analyst. ~Maud Oakes, The Stone Speaks, Page 14

Through my transference to the Stone it became humanized by contact with the man. Jung then became the carrier of the Self for me. ~Maud Oakes, The Stone Speaks, Page 20

Mrs. Jung was a positive feminine figure who as Jung’s wife insured that my transference would not be misunderstood as being purely personal. ~Maud Oakes, The Stone Speaks, Page 20

At times it was a difficult and subjective experience not unlike an analysis, for it seemed that I had made a transference to the Stone in the way an analysand transfers expectations for a basic change onto the analyst. ~Maud Oakes, The Stone Speaks, Page 14

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