General Information
Course Description
569 - Psychoanalytic Theories of Transference and Countertransference - One of Freud's first mentions of transference occurs in his studies in Hysteria. He writes that it is a "false connection" between the patient and the analyst. Later on in his account of the Dora case and in his essays from 1912 and 1915, he distinguishes among three types of transference: the negative, the erotic and the sensible. The negative transference involves aggressive, hostile feelings on the part of the analysand; in the erotic transference the analysand turns the analyst into an object of passionate love; and the sensible version occurs when the analysand begins to see the therapist as an ally who can help in the sorting out of neuroses. Jacques Lacan talks about transference-countertransference as the "invisible" part of the therapeutic process. Melanie Klein reworked Freud's account of the Oedipus Complex and profoundly changed the course of psychoanalysis by introducing her theories of "object relations" and by applying them to the patient-therapist relationship. Julia Kristeva has developed a theory of countertransference asa "revived hysteria." Kristeva has also stated, in interviews, that her "turn" to psychoanalysis in the late 1960s was, in part, inspired by her suspicion that transference in psychoanalysis might well have a parallel in the reader-text relationship. The objective of this course is to provide students with a brief, general introduction to the work of Freud and then to examine in detail his essays on transference and countertransference. The second part of the course will focus on how three twentieth-century psychoanalysts (Lacan, Klein, Kristeva) criticized, reconceptualized, and went beyond Freud's work. An exploration of Kristeva's "suspicion" (reading as/and transference) will be an important thread running through the course.
