Organisations spend a lot of time and money on training and development activities that are designed to encourage employees to show initiative, or to prompt managers to empower their staff.  Transference and counter transference processes undermine these activities, yet they are rarely mentioned as part of the training.

There are several ways in which we can help people (including ourselves) to become aware of these processes so they can be eliminated:
​

• analysis of ego states – we can use questionnaires, feedback from others, role-play or similar activities – anything that helps us recognise how much time we spend in Parent or Child ego states that are reflections of the past rather than being parent or child-like behaviours that we have chosen to use based on current reality
• analysis of transactions – we can analyse examples of real interactions to check for any refracted, crossed or ulterior transactions – any times when we suspect that what seems to be communicated on the surface does not match the underlying dynamics.
• analysis of stroking patterns – reviewing individual, group and organisational patterns of recognition will show whether these are healthy and positive, including constructive criticism as well as praise, personal interest as well as professional – or whether people are somehow generating negative strokes that reinforce not-OK beliefs and behaviours
• checking our reactions through our responses to questions such as:

Using Transference

It may seem strange to suggest we could use transference but therapists do this routinely to enhance their work with clients.  For example, a client who thinks the therapist is a good parent will be more likely to act on the therapist’s advice; a client who thinks the therapist is ‘bad’ can be allowed to work through their issues without being punished by the therapist.

Other helping professionals, and managers, can also use the transference process in a positive way, provided they are aware of it.  This awareness is the key – once transference and/or countertransference are recognised, the professional uses this knowledge to plan more effective ways of interacting, as outlined in Table 3.
​
Examples might be:

• a manager realises that a staff member is behaving as if the manager is a father-figure – so the manager can act as a role model to let the individual learn positive ways of behaving – such as showing them how to deal firmly and fairly with an unreasonable colleague.

• a manager realises that they are being regarded as a mother-figure – so can use a nurturing style to encourage the individual to be more confident about their own abilities – such as by expressing confidence in a nervous individual’s ability to make a good presentation

• a consultant realises that a client is making unrealistic assumptions about shared views – so explains they will now play devil’s advocate as a way of prompting the client to consider other views

• a professional spots the signs of a competitive transference by a colleague – and spends time clarifying the colleague’s ideas and options instead of falling into the (countertransference) trap of arguing with them.

This concept was developed by Julie Hay and Robert Orr during a TA in Education Workshop run on 16 November 1985 and described within a review of the day, written by the late Vivienne Gill, that appeared in ITA News No. 13, Spring 1986.  It is another way of understanding the process of transference.
​
In a refracted transaction, the frame of reference ‘distorts’ the perceived transaction, in much the same way that water refracts light, so that the transaction appears to emanate from a different ego state than that actually activated.

Figure 1 shows a typical example.  The new employee has just joined the organisation and has been given an instruction (1) by the supervisor – who, being a typical supervisor, is interacting from (Controlling) Parent to (Adapted) Child.

The new employee is keen to learn and wants to understand what is required – so asks a question about it (2 – shown as half dotted and half solid line), intending to interact from (Functional) Adult to (Functional) Adult.

The supervisor has transferred a child identity onto the new employee, so refracts the transaction as if it is coming from Child (3 – also shown as half-dotted and half-solid line).

Asking “why” is picked up as an inappropriate challenge from a child, so the supervisor thinks the new employee is misbehaving and responds even more firmly from Parent (4 - which would be a repeat of 1)).

Most new employees will, at this point, intuitively recognise that logical thought on their part is discouraged.  They will, therefore, desist from thinking in future – at least whilst they are at work!

The dotted sections of the transaction lines represent parts of interactions that are ‘ulterior’ or unknown to the individual on that side of the frame of reference; the solid lines are the transactions that are consciously known to the respective individuals.  The new employee ‘knows’ they interacted from Adult and has no idea the supervisor is perceiving it as from Child instead.  Likewise, the supervisor ‘knows’ that the employee transacted from Child and has no idea of the intended transaction to the Supervisor’s Adult.

Competitive transference

In the following examples, Chris would set up a Parent-Parent competitive symbiosis, while Vijay would set up a Child-Child competitive symbiosis.  Both create scenarios where there is an apparent rivalry over who gets to exhibit one particular ego state.

Chris had a tendency to take charge of project meetings, even when not in the chair.  Chris would display Controlling Parent behaviour, whilst at the same time believing that the chairperson was being overly controlling.  Chris would challenge decisions made by the chairperson, try to run the agenda and determine the time allocations for topics, push forward decisions without giving others chance to comment, whilst at the same time accusing the chairperson of being an incompetent control freak.

Vijay, on the other hand, would get into a competitive symbiosis with a co-trainer, Andy, about who was the most needy.  Whenever Andy talked about needing a break or asked Vijay to take the lead in a training session, Vijay would feel a similar need for a break and would want Andy to take the lead in the next session.  In this way, Vijay and Andy would end up competing over who was going to get taken care while the other one did the work.

Concordant transference

In the following examples, Lauren creates a false Parent-Parent empathy while Prakash opts for Child-Child empathy – in both cases the assumptions of being the same mean that the parties avoid certain topics, either because they think their opinions are the same or because they think they know how the other person feels.

Lauren worked as an external change management consultant.  When meeting new clients, Lauren had a tendency to assume that the client had the same values about how a healthy organisation should operate.  This would mean that Lauren made assumptions instead of checking thoroughly to establish client opinions and requirements.  With some clients, the assumptions Lauren made were close enough to reality for it to be virtually unnoticeable.  However, every so often Lauren would have major problems when it transpired later that the client had very different views.  Interventions designed by Lauren would then have to be cancelled or significantly amended in order to meet the true requirements of the client and their organisation.

And, of course, there are clients who assume the consultant shares their opinions, so they commission the work and then rely on trust rather than any accurate monitoring of how the interventions are conducted.  Such clients may also conclude that any shortcomings are caused by participants rather than the consultant being at fault.

Prakash was a mentor who would imagine that the mentee felt the same way, had the same emotional responses, wanted the same things in life, as Prakash did.  Prakash would therefore feel that a very high level of empathy had been established.  This would mean that Prakash avoided raising the sort of topics or feedback that Prakash would have found personally upsetting.  Because of this, the mentee was denied opportunities for increased self-awareness and development.

Mentees may operate the same kind of transference – they then avoid telling the mentor about anything that the mentor might find upsetting or embarrassing.  Instead, the mentee censors their own comments – and might, for instance, be afraid to use the mentor to help them review the pros and cons of leaving the organisation because they believe the mentor will be upset to lose their mentee.

Conflictual transference

Lim-lim has grown up with an overly-controlling caregiver, with whom Lim-lim had consistently behaved rebelliously (and been punished).  Lim-lim had also spent many years transferring these controlling characteristics onto teachers, so that Lim-lim was rebellious towards even the most easy-going teachers.  Lim-lim now did the same to managers, relating to them just as if they were the original caregiver.

This resulted in many Parent-Child interactions in which managers tried unsuccessfully to tell Lim-lim what to do and Lim-lim agreed and refused to comply.

Lim-lim works in a large organisation and has been transferred several times – Lim-lim’s current manager also grew up with a very controlling caregiver but has opted to copy that person so is unwittingly filling the parent role that Lim-lim seems to need to rebel against.

Pat had children and had adopted a very Controlling Parent way of behaving towards them.  When at work, Pat behaved as if other staff, especially Pat’s subordinates, were really rebellious children and needed to be treated as such.  This led to much conflict – even the fairly easy-going members of staff found themselves feeling resentful and rebellious over the way Pat interacted with them.  Pat, of course, saw these reactions as proof of the need to treat people as children.

When someone like Lim-lim ends up working for someone like Pat, they both feel that their views of how to treat people are validated.

Co-dependent transference

Due to circumstances, Alia has grown up without nurturing caregivers but had been aware that other children, especially those in films and TV programmes, seemed to have caring parents.  Alia was therefore yearning, out of awareness, for such a parent figure.  This led Alia to behave in a ‘helpless’ way, whilst transferring nurturing tendencies onto almost everyone who was older and/or more senior then Alia.

At the same time, Kim had grown up in an overly-nurturing environment and had somehow opted to adopt very nurturing characteristics.  Having practised with siblings and dolls, Kim was ‘programmed’ to take care of anyone younger or more junior – so would expect to adopt a Nurturing Parent role to their ‘needy’ child.

Once Kim and Alia started working together, they seemed to be locked into a Parent-Child relationship.  The symbiosis led each to believe they couldn’t function on their own – it needed both of them to create one full set of ego states between them.
​
Note that it is possible to have a healthy symbiosis for a real child with a real parent.  This is because such a relationship rejects reality and does not involve transference – the child really does need parenting until they reach a certain age.  Couples may also set up functional symbiosis.  For example, one does the gardening and the other cares for the house.  No transference is involved as long as both recognise these as choices – and know that they are capable of swapping tasks if necessary.

Trainers sometimes find that groups of grown-up participants will behave as if they are children at school – not asking questions, whispering to each other, even treating the trainer as someone who may ridicule them if they give a wrong answer.

Facilitators sometimes find that group members will behave as if they are with their own family – acting as if the facilitator or group leader is a parent or grandparent, behaving like the children they once were, even engaging in displays of ‘sibling rivalry’ as they try to impress the leader.

We can understand these and similar situations by using the concept of transference.

Transference

Everyday use of English tells us that ‘transfer’ means something gets shifted across – as in footballers joining new teams.  From a TA perspective, transference is the term for what is happening when we shift across the characteristics of one person (ourself or someone else) onto another.

So we may project our own good or bad points onto somebody else, which will mean that we like them a lot because they seem to be just like us, or we dislike them a lot because we have invested them with our own failings – in this case we probably also manage to repress our own awareness of having the faults ourself.  This is why it is easier to get on with people once we accept that we are not perfect ourselves; once we recognise that we are still OK even with faults, we no longer have to project those faults onto others and can relate to people as who they really are.

Or it may be the characteristics of someone else that we transfer, as when we relate to authority figures as if they are one of our parents or caregivers, or to junior employees as if they are our children (or nieces or nephews or children of friends).  This accounts for the common pattern in organisations where each successive level of management relates to the level above as if they are the parent and to the level below as if they are the child.  An interesting reversal of this pattern is when a male manager relates to a female secretary as if she is his mother – often reinforced by her responding to him as if he really is a small boy who needs to be scolded into getting to meetings on time and so on.

Countertransference
​
Countertransference is the term used for the ways in which a therapist responds to the transference of their client.   However, what is thought of as countertransference will sometimes be simply the person’s own transference.  For example, managers will often claim on training programmes that they are forced to behave as parents because their subordinates behave so much like children – when their subordinates are on the training courses, they of course claim that they act like children only because their managers are incapable of behaving in any way other than as parents!

Professional helpers monitor their reactions for countertransference because this gives then valuable information about how to help their clients.  If a consultant recognises feelings of wanting to take care of the client, they can check whether this is a realistic, here-and-now reaction that is also an appropriate thing to do – or whether it is a reaction to helplessness being exhibited by the client.  For instance, if a course participant is clearly unable to deal with being bullied by their local manager, it may be appropriate (and an organisational requirement) for the trainer to report this to senior management.  However, a strong urge by a coach to intervene with the client’s manager over something like management interference in a project may be outside the contract, part of a game of ‘Let’s you and them fight’; and triggered by a combination of the client’s avoidance tactics and the coach’s Rescuer tendencies.
​
Categories of Transference

When we look more closely at transference, we can identify several formats.  Novellino & Moiso (1990) relate transferential relationships to three levels of impasse: monadic, where the client merges themself with the therapist; diadic, where the client projects all of the ‘good’ or all of the ‘bad’ that they believe exists within themself onto the therapist; and triadic, where the client projects their own Parent ego state (P2), the content of which has been copied from others, onto the therapist.  Clarkson (1992) writes of: complementary, where the client seeks a symbiotic relationship with their therapist; concordant, where the client projects aspects of themself onto the therapist so they seem to be alike; destructive, which is acting out or similar that means therapy cannot proceed; and facilitative transference, where the client chooses a therapist so the client can still use effective behaviour patterns from the past.

For developmental TA purposes, we can categorise on two dimensions:

• projecting elements of our self or of someone else (a third party) onto the person we are transacting with
• projecting so that we appear to get on well with the other person or so that we have a problem relating to each other

We can then show 4 options as in the Table.