The burden of transference

July 7th, 2023

Transference is simply an amazing trick that our mind plays on us — it stretches an empty canvas right in front of us, right at a particular moment in time — to visualize our repressed (and consciously forgotten) desires and fantasies and feelings and attitudes and fears. We can refer to and represent what are underlying problems from somewhere deep in our psyche and latch them onto a person or a group in our presence at the current time.

It gives us self-validation when we can plainly and openly talk about our inner lives, when in fact we only refer to things from the past. It is a universal passion and pastime for us to feel good about something artificially connected to the present time without getting to the bottom of the true issues at hand. We might even feel healed and feel fulfillment at the naturalness of the matter but this transference represents only a feel-good reality and a feeble attempt at the self-therapy.

It might seem that we create this version of reality to really discover ourselves, BUT — only if we take this as a starting point in self-analysis. What we see in the transference might not be immediately evident but with the right approach, it can be immensely important and satisfying. Projections are desirable and necessary for our mental health and for our ability to function in society at large. Without projection and connected to it transference we would be overwhelmed by the burden of everyday life and our being would be negated by our loneliness and detachment from the core substance of the true conscious life. But as I say again — it is only a starting point for truer self-discovery. Is it better than the pathetically weak ignorance of our true selves? That is for everyone to find out and decide if the constant search is better than the comfortable safety of a well-worn surface of our psyche.