Transference, catharsis, and insight

Transference occurs when a client projects feelings toward the therapist that more
legitimately belong with certain important others. Freud felt that transference was
necessary in therapy in order to bring the repressed emotions that have been
plaguing the client for so long, to the surface. You can't feel really angry, for
example, without a real person to be angry at. The relationship between the client
and the therapist, contrary to popular images, is very close in Freudian therapy,
although it is understood that it can't get out of hand.
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© Copyright 1997, 2006 C. George Boeree
C. George Boeree: Personality Theories  Sigmund Freud
Catharsis is the sudden and dramatic outpouring of emotion that occurs when the
trauma is resurrected. The
box of tissues on the end table is not there for decoration.
Insight is being aware of the source of the emotion, of the original traumatic
event. The major portion of the
therapy is completed when catharsis and insight are experienced. What should have
happened many years ago – because you were too little to deal with it, or under too
many conflicting pressures – has now
happened, and you are on your way to becoming a happier person.
Freud said that the goal of therapy is simply " to make the unconscious conscious."