Transference occurs when clients project onto the helper past feelings or attitudes they had toward significant people in their lives.

Transference occurs when clients project onto the helper past feelings or attitudes they had toward significant people in their lives.

• A. The therapist projects onto the client
• B. Clients project onto the helper past feelings toward significant people
• C. It is a form of dream analysis
• D. It is not clinically relevant

Answer: (B)

Transference occurs when a client unconsciously redirects feelings and attitudes from significant people in their past onto the therapist. In therapy, the client may experience the therapist as a stand-in for those important figures, bringing with them hopes, fears, love, anger, or distrust that originated in earlier relationships. This pattern allows the therapist to see how past relationships influence current behavior and can be explored to understand and modify relational dynamics. The correct description captures this dynamic—clients projecting past feelings toward people they know onto the helper. The idea that the therapist projects onto the client describes countertransference, not transference. Dream analysis is a different technique and not the defining feature of transference, and dismissing transference as irrelevant would ignore its central role in many psychodynamic approaches.

Transference occurs when a client unconsciously redirects feelings and attitudes from significant people in their past onto the therapist. In therapy, the client may experience the therapist as a stand-in for those important figures, bringing with them hopes, fears, love, anger, or distrust that originated in earlier relationships. This pattern allows the therapist to see how past relationships influence current behavior and can be explored to understand and modify relational dynamics. The correct description captures this dynamic—clients projecting past feelings toward people they know onto the helper. The idea that the therapist projects onto the client describes countertransference, not transference. Dream analysis is a different technique and not the defining feature of transference, and dismissing transference as irrelevant would ignore its central role in many psychodynamic approaches.