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The authors attempt to present in lucid, everyday language everything they know, think, and feel about transference and its function. They bring under one roof the many intricate variations of transference as a concept and how it manifests itself in numerous clinical situations. Their attitude is that transference can be normal or pathological. Both types are adaptational in nature and of unique importance in relationships between individuals.
Normal or universal transference permits trial relationships between people and "anticipates a permanent or real relationship." It contains no regression. Pathological transference may be neurotic or psychotic (transference neurosis or transference psychosis) and develops in the therapeutic situation. It is artificially induced by the therapist's permissiveness, by "increased verbal acting out, by the regressive consequences of the neurotic process, and by the exploration of the unconscious." It is the opinion of the authors that "what the normal and universal