transference

plural transferences · alternative transferrence

1. countableuncountableThe act of conveying from one place to another; the act of transferring or the fact of being transferred.

   Synonyms: transferal

2. countableuncountablehuman sciencesThe process by which emotions and desires, originally associated with one person, such as a parent, are unconsciously shifted to another.

   Those who argue for laws against sex between therapists and clients say that consent is not a simple matter for the person who goes to another for help. They point in particular to the dynamic of "transference," during which a client may re-enact a parental relationship with the therapist.

   1990 August 31, Laura Briggs, “Should Sex Between Therapists/Clients Be Legal”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 7, page 3

   1 more example

   Furthermore, although probably few analysts still believe that transference occurs only in the context of the psychoanalytic situation, many hold that this phenomenon pertains only to object relationships. I submit, however, that the characteristic features of transference can be observed in other situations as well, especially in the area of learned skills.⁶ Thus, speaking a language with a foreign accent is one of the most striking everyday examples of transference. In the traditional concept of transference, one person (the analysand) behaves toward another (the analyst) as if the latter were someone else, previously familiar to him; and the subject is usually unaware of the actual manifestations of his own transferred behavior. In exactly the same way, persons who speak English (or any other language) with a foreign accent treat English as if it were their mother tongue; and they are usually unaware of the actual manifestations of their transferred behavior. […]

   1974, Thomas S. Szasz, chapter 15, in The Myth of Mental Illness, →ISBN, page 253