Most of us know the word transference, or at least have heard of it, in the context of psychotherapy where it is used commonly when people in mental health treatment will apply certain feelings toward the therapist. Patients “transfer” their thoughts and emotions they have for someone else in their lives to the therapist.
But, in relation to our perception of life events and people, transference also describes a process where most if not all our previous life experiences and feelings are immediately with us in the present. We then view another person or a specific situation through the lens those experiences and feelings create.
Our senses are literally stained in each moment of perception by our past betrayals, our damage, our affirmations, the moments of our nurturing. All of these and more are with us in every situation we are in, each present person we are with. We then define that situation and that person through the stained past of our entire life as we experience them in our present.
To teach this concept in my college classes, I often used the example of a wormhole from science fiction movies as an illustration. The idea of wormholes existing in physical science is consistent with the general theory of relativity, but whether they really exist remains to be seen and has yet to be proven. Nonetheless, in Star Trek films and in some Star Wars movies, a wormhole is a disruption in the time/space continuum and can interconnect extremely long distances such as a billion light years or more. It then turns these very long distances into short ones such as a few meters. So, a spaceship may travel to different universes or different points in time by entering one of these wormholes and coming out on its other side almost immediately.
What does this have to do with transference? My answer is probably everything. When we have a social interaction with another person, or when we experience any event or encounter any life situation, all our various life experiences immediately “wormhole” themselves into our present. They are literally right there in the present with us almost immediately. We cannot not experience the person or the event without thinking and feeling about those same previous life experiences. This is then why you may find one person attractive, and your friend will find the same person not so much so.
Maybe the way the person moves his hands or touches her hair reminds you of when your father did that to you during a pleasant moment as you felt safe or affirmed. Perhaps the way the person does those same things, however, brings back the memory of parental fear or criticism to your friend. The person is the very same, the moment has not varied, but the perceptions of the person in that same time and place by you and your friend are vastly different.
In similar ways, we are always transferring our personal issues, good or bad, into our present as we experience life. The news broadcast we hear on Fox or CNN is colored by them. The glance our spouse gives us at a party is interpreted through them. The tone of voice our child speaks to us through is heard through them. Our friend not returning our text or phone call is construed one way or the other through them.
There is no path around the way our past life “wormholes” its way into our present life. Transference is simply going to happen. It is happening all the time. It will never stop happening. The transference process is ever with us, effecting our perceptions of people, places, and events. This is not a bad or good thing. It is not a maybe/perhaps thing. It is an actual thing.
Transference is happening right now to you as you read this sentence. It is tinting your perceptions of what I write. Using our emotional wormholes, it is the reason our past often is present with us, and why our present so often seems chained to our past.
The more we can understand transference in this way, the more likely we can begin to understand our emotions, our perceptions, and the choices those lead us to throughout the day.
Much of our moving forward as we struggle to grow can be related to staying mindful of how our past transfers into our present using the portals of our emotional wormholes.