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Lesson 26 Introduction to the Transference I

In the last lesson we briefly considered the question of what happens when the impulses are blocked internally before they reach the centers. Intrabody anesthesia is one such situation, and an example of this is when the subject feels no tension or sensations in his sexual organs, and has symptoms of impotence. Another kind of impulse blockage occurs when a strongly conflictive situation is forgotten instead of being integrated or cathartically discharged. A third kind of blockage is occurring when the subject is continuously depressed. In this state the subject does experience strong internal tensions, but not of a kind that can be corrected by means of relaxation or cathartic practices. The above kinds of problems, as well as others much more complicated, invite us onward to the more complex practices we call “transference.” The objective of the transferential works is to integrate mental contents. Transferential practices do not work the same as cathartic practices by discharging tensions towards the outside world; rather, they work by transferring charges from one content to another in the consciousness in order to balance one’s system of thinking, one’s mental “scene.” In reality, the consciousness is continuously transferring charges from one content to another. But for various reasons, at times certain contents remain isolated and produce dissociations. From the psychological point of view, human life should naturally consist of a progressive integration of contents. In this sense, the transference as a technique is intended to assist this normal process that takes place in the consciousness but is sometimes affected by accidental dissociations. Just as there are natural cathartic expressions, there are also natural tranferential operations that occur in dreams, reveries, artistic activities, making love, and in religious experiences. Here we are not defining these activities by their transferential nature, rather we are explaining that transferences do occur in them. In paradoxical sleep (sleep with dreams or images), transferences occur which integrate and order contents, the events of the day are reorganized in the memory, tensions are relieved, and the body rests. Thus, sleep serves many functions, one of which is transferential. Many cathartic phenomena allow transferences to occur by relieving overcharges that were blocking the transference. Conversely, transferential phenomena may free remaining vercharges which are then expressed cathartically. Although they fulfill different functions, catharsis and transference often act concomitantly. Later we will see that in cases of excessive tension, it is necessary to produce cathartic discharges before beginning the transferential work. We will also see that there are circumstances in which a cathartic reaction is not opportune because it would take away the necessary charge from the contents we wish to integrate.

I. Tensions and Climates: The Impulses and Their Transformations In the Self Knowledge lessons we made a first distinction between tensions and climates. We explained that climates are a diffuse and undefined emotional sensation. We explained that tensions, on the other hand, are related to external and internal muscles and sometimes to mental images. We mentioned various examples of climates, such as feelings of desolation, violence, loneliness, injustice, oppression, insecurity, etc. When we studied cathartic techniques we paid special attention to discharging the permanent tensions as opposed to the situational ones. Similarly, when we work with transferential techniques, our primary interest will be on the “fixed climates,” that is, the permanent climates which operate as constant emotional background in everyday life. These background climates occupy the central field of the consciousness (becoming direct objects of attention) only in certain circumstances. Climates are not precise in character, rather they are diffuse. Sometimes they even lack corresponding visual images. Climates arise from internal cenesthetic sensations that are produced either by functional disorders such as illnesses, or by impulses or signals from the memory or the consciousness. The impulses from the memory or the consciousness are converted into cenesthetic images, which in turn act on the vegetative, sexual, or emotional centers. These centers then give internal responses that provoke a whole new set of internal sensations; this is what we call feedback of the impulses. When these new internal sensations are detected by the cenesthetic senses, they reach the consciousness in a diffuse way, as is the case for sensations produced by functional disorders. In the consciousness, these new diffuse cenesthetic sensations are then translated into other kinds of images (visual, auditory, etc.) that correspond to the external senses. In this way impulses from an organic disorder, as well as from a sexual or emotional overcharge, may be converted into images, often visual images, through the phenomenon of the translation of impulses. But the images produced are always accompanied by the diffuse emotional climate characteristic of the original intra-body impulses. The phenomenon of the translation of cenesthetic impulses into images that correspond to the external senses increases as a person’s level of consciousness lowers. In fact, cenesthetic impulses that in vigil reach the consciousness only as diffuse climates, will appear during sleep translated into vivid visual images. This happens because as the person’s level of consciousness drops, the external senses such as sight disconnect from the external world, and the thresholds of perception of the internal senses widen considerably. Let us see an example of this. A sensation interpreted in vigil as “tingling” from one’s arm going to sleep may appear in a dream translated into the visual image of ants crawling on one’s arm. In the dream, these images serve the function of helping the sleeping person correct the position of his arm without having to wake up. These images also give rise to a long chain of associated images that result in a complicated dream plot. Other cases of the translation of impulses are when increased stomach acidity is translated into the visual image of a fire; a problem of restricted breathing becomes translated into an image of a sleeping person being buried; heart trouble becomes translated into an arrow wound; excessive intestinal gas becomes the balloon flight; and a sexual overcharge is translated into visual, auditory, or tactile images of the opposite sex. Stimuli from the external world may also simply be deformed in the level of sleep, without necessarily being translated from one sense to another. For example, a telephone ringing may be interpreted in sleep as the sound of bells in the wind; someone knocking at the door may become in sleep the old cobbler hammering his shoes in some story; and one’s feet entangled in the sheets may become a swamp filled with obstacles with tactile qualities like those of the stimulus. We have distinguished between two different kinds of transformation of impulses, “translation” and “deformation.” In deformation, impulses are altered but still attributed to their original sense. In translation, they become attributed to or changed into images that correspond to a different sense. Another important case of the transformation of impulses is what we call “absence.” This occurs in intrabody anesthesia, with the loss of limbs or organs, and with any deficiency in an external sense. The absence of these sensory impulses is experienced as climates of “loss of identity,” “disconnection from the world,” etc. In the lower levels of consciousness, such absences of stimuli are compensated by various deformations or translations, depending on which associative chains best serve the functions of the psychological economy.

II. Perception and Representation: Associative Chains When a person perceives an object, he either recognizes it as familiar, or else he is aware it is a new object. It is possible for him to make this distinction due to the process in which the incoming sensory impulses go to the memory and the consciousness, and undergo a rapid analysis in the memory. In this analysis, the new sensory impulses are compared with those that have been previously recorded. Then the memory forwards a complete signal to the consciousness which either “recognizes” the object or “doesn’t recognize” it. By the time the impulses or signals that originate in the senses (as sensations) reach the consciousness, they are already structured as perceptions. Similarly, the information from the memory reaches the consciousness already structured into representations. The agreement (or lack of agreement) between the perception and representation allows the consciousness to recognize the stimulus (or not recognize it). When a person perceives a new object for the first time, the memory still forwards incomplete information with which the consciousness can define or locate the object according to its similarity, contiguity, or contrast with classes of objects or parts of other objects. In such cases, the subject will say that the new object is like another one in certain characteristics that it could not possibly be like this other one, etc. For every perception there will always be a corresponding representation. Representations are triggered in chains from the memory; we call these chains of impulses of representations “associative chains.” In the consciousness the associative chains which stand out most are the primary ones directly related to the object one is presently paying attention to. But other associations that have to do with the internal dynamics of the consciousness will also arise. Were this not so, the consciousness would work “photographically,” solely on the basis of whether or not it recognized the sensory impulses that reach it. Actually, the consciousness works with dynamic sequences of associations, and not simply static “photos” of what it perceives. Suppose now that the memory is being stimulated by sensory impulses that arrive from the internal or cenesthetic senses, and at the same time other impulses are arriving from the external world through the external senses. The memory will forward information to the consciousness which will correspondingly recognize it. Clearly, if this person is engaging in his normal activities in the world, but at the same time is receiving unpleasant sensory impulses from inside his body from some vegetative disorder, he will experience a “climatic” recognition of the world. For example, a person with liver trouble will view even a beautiful picture without pleasure; a visceral irritation in a person will lead him to conjure up a view of an irritating world; and a deep internal muscular contraction will shrink or contract his perception of the world. In this way, the numerous associative chains that appear in the consciousness originate from both the internal as well as the external sensory impulses that reach the memory. We have said that the associations are usually made by either similarity, contiguity, or contrast. Let us examine each case. If someone says “Mountain” and I associate this with “skyscraper” I have associated through similarity; if instead I respond to “mountain” with “snow” I have associated through contiguity; and if I answer with “valley” I have associated through contrast. In associations through similarity, the representations act by likeness; in association through contiguity they act by closeness or proximity to what is or was in contact with the proposed object; and in associations through contrast, one associates by what is opposite to the proposed object. Using these three pathways of association, the consciousness can also establish more complex relationships between elements. These will be relationships of differentiation, complementation or connection, and synthesis. These relationships, however, also require the operation of the mechanisms of abstraction in addition to the associative mechanisms, because they are more complicated operations. Thus, the associative relations we have described are used in the rational operations as well as the operations of the imagination in the consciousness. When one controls or voluntarily directs these associative chains we speak of “directed images,” whereas if the representations are free, spontaneous or uncontrolled we call them “free images.” When one systematically remembers the objects in one’s room, one is working with directed representation; when one daydreams or lets one’s associations play freely, one is working with free representation.

III. Associative Chains and the Level of Consciousness As one’s level of consciousness lowers, the directed associations diminish and free associations are more prevalent. The rational comparison of data becomes more confused, and in general the attention no longer directs the activities of the consciousness. Therefore, the critical and self-critical faculties are also reduced. When one’s level of consciousness drops, what we call the mechanisms of reversibility are blocked; conversely, they become unblocked as one’s level of consciousness rises. The reversible mechanisms allow the consciousness to direct its operations in a more or less “voluntary” way; that is, the reversible mechanisms are operating when the consciousness directs its attention towards the source of some sensory or memory impulses. This is the case of evocation (attention plus memory) as opposed to simple remembering in which the impulses reach the consciousness from the memory without any attentional function. The second case of reversibility is known as apperception (attention plus perception), which is different from simple perception where the information reaches the consciousness without the latter having intentionally gone to the source of the stimulus. What we call the “rational” operations of the consciousness are basically vigilic ones; therefore they are characterized by the function of the reversible mechanisms. On the other hand, the typically “irrational” operations of the level of consciousness of sleep impose themselves on the consciousness with all the suggestive power of their images; there is an absence of critical function due to the blockage of the mechanisms of reversibility. In the intermediate level of consciousness we call semi-sleep, which occurs in states of fatigue, upon waking up, or upon going to sleep, the activities of the reversible mechanisms are partially but not completely blocked. Other important cases of the partial operation of the reversible mechanisms are the altered states of consciousness - such as strong suggestibility, hypnosis, hallucination, etc. These are all altered states, although the person’s level of consciousness is still vigilic. Such altered states have caused no little confusion in classical psychology when people have incorrectly believed, for example, that hypnosis is a special state of Sleep, that hallucinations are simply make-believe, etc. In the special altered state we call “emotional consciousness,” the mechanisms of reversibility are only partially functioning, even though the consciousness is still carrying out the other mental operations according to the normal demands of vigilic activity.

IV. The Space of Representation

When one perceives an object visually, one sees it in a particular location in space. One can determine its height, width, and its volume. One can also distinguish whether the object is nearer to one or farther from one than other objects. Even this ordinary visual perception is very complex. Every object one perceives has both color and size; these two categories are inseparable and form a structure. Similarly, when one imagines or visually represents an object, color does not exist without size and vice versa. For this phenomenon there is no difference between perception and representation. For example, if one imagines a transparent piece of glass and sees another object through it, although the glass is transparent, it Will still have a certain diaphanous quality, a slightly grayish tinged that allows one to see it as “transparent.” If one imagines a red disk, one can make the image larger until one can no longer see its limits, or one can make the representation smaller until it is just a tiny spot. In either case, one is always simultaneously aware of both its size and color. When a person perceives something, the object either moves or remains fixed in one place, and this is independent of the mental operations of the observer. The same thing happens with color-whether an object remains the same color or changes color is independent of the observer. Both the observer and/or the object may move, and the observer will perceive these changes in spite of his other mental activities. Of course, at times illusions do occur, and one’s own movement is interpreted as a movement of the object or vice versa; however, this illusion does not affect the real object which is external to the consciousness. In the process of imagination or representation something different occurs. Both the color and size of an object represented in one’s mind can be modified (although not separated) by one’s mental operations. In addition, the size of the object, which is related to the apparent distance between the observer and the object, can also be changed by mental operations. In exceptional cases such as hallucinations, the representation acquires even greater strength than the perception, and is also placed in the “external” space so the object one represents is taken for an external perception. An object that is being perceived can be distinguished from one that is being represented principally by its independence of one’s mental operations. The perceived object may also usually be distinguished by the greater sharpness and strength of its image, although this will not be true in all cases. Upon closing one’s eyes and representing an object which one has previously perceived, one will notice that the object still appears to be “outside” or external to oneself, even though one knows the image results from mental operations inside one. The object is being represented in a space of the consciousness similar to the space of perception, but of course it is not the same one. We call the space of the consciousness in which objects are represented or imagined, the “space of representation.” One can differentiate between these two spaces thanks to both the internal tactile sensation of one’s eyelids, and the characteristic cenesthesia or internal sensations that correspond to one’s mental operations or representation. When one imagines an object, and it appears to be represented in the space of perception “outside” one, this illusion arises because the image is placed in the most external layer of the space of representation. If one now moves the image of this same object towards the center of one’s head, one can feel the image move “inside” the limit of the apparent “external” space defined by both the translation of the tactile sensation of the limit of one’s eyelids, and by one’s general cenesthesia. The space of representation is similar to the space of perception in that it is three-dimensional; through one’s capacity for representation, all images can be located in it as three-dimensional objects. Depending on the “depth” or “height” of the images in the space of representation, impulses or signals are then sent to certain corresponding centers of response. For example, if one imagines one’s hand as though one sees it from “outside” oneself moving towards another object, one’s hand will not actually move just because one does these mental operations. However, if one now feels one’s hand moving from “inside”-this is now a kinesthetic and not a visual image-one will notice that the muscles in one’s hand actually do tend to move in the imagined direction. This happens when one places the kinesthetic image at the exact vertical level and internal layer of depth within the space of representation that corresponds to the motor response of one’s hand moving. Images that correspond to the external senses (Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) do not mobilize the activity of the motor center; rather, they show the path along which the movement of one’s body will be directed when it does move through the action of the appropriate images which correspond to the internal censesthetic and kinesthetic senses. The body will move only if the images of these internal senses are placed correctly in both internal depth and vertical height within the space of representation, and if the images have adequate “charge.” If the image is too deep within the space, there will be no external motor response. If the height is incorrect, another part of the body may respond instead of one’s hand. If the charge on the image is not adequate, one’s response may be either too weak or too strong. The space of representation is the “screen” or monitor on which the consciousness remains aware of its own operations, and at times directs them with its attentional mechanism. Of course, mental operations may also take place in the space automatically without any participation of the attention. This occurs, for example, when a person is asleep and dreaming. It is important to note that the impulses from the external and internal senses, from the memory, and from the operations of the consciousness itself, all eventually wind up being converted into images that are placed at different heights and internal depths within the space of representation. Through an awareness of the phenomenon of transformation of impulses (translation, deformation, or absence), one can begin to appreciate the immense combinational possibilities of the phenomena of the consciousness, and the vast carthartic and transferential processes which occur as charges and contents move through the different levels and depths in the space of representations. We will not proceed to the first exercises in the system of Tranference:

Preliminary Transferential Exercises

Exercise 1 The guide asks that the subject remember a pleasant scene from his life; the guide then asks the subject to distinguish between the muscular tension and the emotional climate generated by the scene. Next the guide requests that the subject do the same thing with unpleasant memories. The object of this exercise is to experience the difference between tensions and climates.

Exercise 2 The guide asks the subject to systematically describe the objects that appear when the subject enters his or her house, and then his or her room. Next, the guide asks the subject to freely associate and describe any images that occur to him in his room, placing special emphasis on not rationalizing the operations. The object of this exercise is to distinguish between the directed and free development of images. It should be noted that when working with directed images the level of consciousness tends to be more vigilic, whereas when working with free images the level of consciousness tends towards semi-sleep. Discuss the work of the reversible mechanisms in this exercise.

Exercise 3 The guide, who has taken notes on the subject’s free association of images from the previous exercise, then discusses and classifies with the subject which associations appeared through similarity, which through contiguity, and which through contrast.

Exercise 4 In this exercise, as in the following ones, the subject should tell the guide what is happening the moment it happens. The guide asks the subject to relax deeply, and to begin by seeing an image of himself or herself. Then, the subject should begin to descend towards the depths using ladders, elevators, ropes, or whatever resources the subject prefers. Eventually, the guide asks the subject to return to the original plane or level in the space of representation from which the process, started, and from there to move upwards towards the heights. Finally, the guide suggests that the subject return to the original middle plane. Afterwards, the subject is asked to point out any rationalizations and difficulties he or she encountered in these movements and free associations as the subject moved vertically from one level to another in the space of representation.

Exercise 5 Starting with an image of himself or herself in the picture again, the subject is asked to freely move forward horizontally within the scene. Later, the guide asks the subject to return back over the same route followed until the subject reaches the starting point. The subject should then tell the guide about any difficulties found in “going forward” or “going backward” in the space of representation.

Exercise 6 The guide asks the subject to again begin by seeing an image of himself or herself, and then to contract this image and make it smaller with respect to the other objects in this visual scene. Next, the subject is asked to return to his or her, initial size, and then to grow larger, and finally to contract again until eventually the subject’s image, returns to normal size. Finally, the subject should tell the guide about any difficulties encountered in contracting and expanding this self-image in the space of representation. This series of exercises is a first approximation to the operations with images which will be widely used in transference.