Transference
is simultaneously one of the most commonly experienced and, yet, one of
the most commonly overlooked mechanisms of dysfunctional behavior
today. This article combines biblical examples and personal insights
while revealing some of the developmental roots and hidden workings of
transference in our lives.
Defined by Love
As we read earlier, God
purposely designed mankind with the capacity to
experience remarkable personal significance through a loving
relationship with Him. Man and woman were created with the ability to
enjoy and appreciate relationship with God, one another, and the rest
of creation (Gen. 1:26-31). Man’s individual sense of personal
significance was considerably enriched through these loving, healthy
relationships.
Through
the mirror of these relationships, mankind found the means to
identify and personally appropriate a positive definition of self. Man
discovered purpose of being and realized personal contentment while
glorifying God through the enjoyment of fellowship with Him and
obedience to His decrees. In this godly fellowship, man had the
opportunity to daily experience the fulfillment of his greatest need, a
dynamic love relationship with God.
Spiritual Identity Crisis
Ever since the intimacy
in mankind’s relationship with God was
displaced by sin, our souls have keenly missed the magnitude of the
love that man once intimately realized in an unhindered relationship
with God. The absence of a close personal realization of God’s love has
created a spiritual identity crisis for mankind. Where once we found
secure definition, direction, and fulfillment of self as sinless
recipients of God’s love, we now struggle with the incessant
misdirection and selfish inclinations of the sinful nature (1 John
2:15-17).
Lacking
a close, personal, experiential realization of our Creator’s
full and perfect love for us, many of us today are given over to the
relentless intrigues of our love-famished souls, as we demand and
expect compensation through the unhealthy behavioral mechanism called
transference.
Great Expectations
Transference is,
essentially, a desperate effort or attempt, usually
initiated by our subconscious, to bring temporary relief from the pain
or anxiety of unsatisfied needs, unresolved conflicts, or emotional
traumas from the past. It is a behavior that arises from the desire to
either deny or soothe past emotional pain through the present day
utilization of a vicarious replacement. The unsettled subconscious mind
frequently motivates an individual who is in denial to seek consolation
for unresolved past disappointments by punishing with anger or
demanding unrealistic compensatory affection from people today. Using
the mechanism of transference as a tool, we try to gain some degree of
compensatory relief or satisfaction through our present day
relationships.
One
example of transference is the expression toward people in our
lives today of the anger dwelling in our hearts; an anger which is
often a consequence of judgments we have formed in reaction to people
from our past who have sinned against us. Or, very commonly, we may
place heavy demands and expectations, whether spoken or unspoken, on
people we are in relationship with, inwardly desiring them to
compensate us for the love we may not have received as children.
Another form of transference is an excessive need
for complimentary
recognition from people who are in positions of authority (parents,
pastors, teachers, bosses, etc.). We often desire this recognition as a
positive affirmation, hoping to medicate the pain from prior
disappointments where we feel we have been overlooked or unappreciated
by a significant person in our life. The failure to receive this
recognition in a timely fashion can provoke a negative emotional
recall, dredging up many of the feelings of disappointment from the
original circumstances. This disappointment then provides the
initiative for the wounded soul to vicariously “punish” the person[s]
from the past, by subjecting the person in the present to a barrage of
judgmental thoughts, words, or actions (Luke 15:25-30; 1 John 4:20).
Hiding From the Pain
A person who is in denial
and is transferring is usually unaware that
their current dysfunctional behavior is motivated by painful past
issues. In fact, in order to realize any present satisfaction from the
transference process, one must necessarily remain in denial about the
actual motivation behind his behavior.
By
remaining in denial through transference, a person is able to
temporarily suppress or relieve the pain behind the feelings associated
with the original causative event. It is important to realize that
feelings of emotional pain, desperation, and powerlessness over past
events are the primary motivations drawing one to this kind of behavior
in the first place. An underlying fear of regressing to this painful
emotional state from the past causes the person that is transferring to
steadfastly avoid examining their motivations, even if the underlying
motivation is clearly revealed to them. So, unless the one who is being
confronted about transference is also presented with a viable way to be
free of the emotional pain from the past, there is usually not
sufficient incentive to encourage them to move toward honest
introspection.
Letting Off Steam
There
is usually considerable anger, anxiety, emotional abuse, and,
sometimes, deviant sexual activity in relationships where extensive
transference is occurring. Self-righteous indignation, combined with a
sense of powerlessness to change what happened in the past, contributes
to the striving of the soul to seek relief - no matter what the cost to
the relationship. The subconscious mind has nowhere to go with all the
anger and heartache from the past that is stored up in an unforgiving,
unrepentant heart. So, through the opportunity afforded by the
mechanism of transference, it finds a temporary pressure release by
blaming, manipulating, and making unreasonable demands of others (Psalm
4:4).
“It’s Not My Problem, It’s Your Problem”
One of the most common
aspects of transference
is
that, most of the
time, just like the perpetrators, the victims of transference are not
even aware of what is really happening. You see, people who frequently
and successfully transfer onto others, really believe that their issues
originate in their current relationship and that their cause is both
honest and fair. Being convinced of this, those doing the transference
become very proficient at convincing others onto whom they are
transferring, that they are both current and justified in their present
stance. This maintains a readily available human “well” into which they
may dip, as they desire, to satisfy their insatiable thirst for
unhealthy recompense.
The
critical, judgmental, and persistently analytical mind of the
chronic transference initiator is practiced at discovering existing
opportunities with which to take personal offense. When the offense is
determined, the event is often slowly and meticulously dissected, so
that the guilt of the offender may be proved beyond a shadow of a
doubt.
So,
because of the determined and complex focus on current relationship
issues by the one who is transferring, it is not really surprising
that, most of the time, people are not even aware that others are
actually transferring their unresolved disappointment from past events
onto them. What they are keenly aware of is the discomfort, pain and
shame they are feeling as a result.
Marketing the Lie to Support Transference
The prideful secular
psychological spirit of
the age
fondly embraced by
society today has helped to advance the self-gratifying illusion that
happiness can be obtained exclusively by human efforts and through
human relationships. Hoping to further advance this illusion to the
point of hopeless delusion, the “god” of this world (Satan) spends a
considerable amount of time and energy trying to seduce us through the
propagation of his definition of the true source of contentment (Mat.
4:1-11).
From the beginning, Satan has introduced and
marketed the lie that what
we truly need and really want is available to us without having to even
consider God (Gen. 3:1-5). Satan proposes through insinuation
(temptation) that we ought to use whatever is attractive, readily
available, and seemingly beneficial for immediate personal
gratification. Immediate self-gratification is an especially attractive
notion to the sin nature of man and the soul is quite practiced in its
application (Exo. 15:22-24; 16:1-3; 16:20; 17:1-7). It is, in fact,
temporary self-gratification, sought through the manipulation of human
relationships that is the desired result from transference.
Looking For Love in All the Wrong Places
The Bible characterizes a
person’s habitual
concession
to the
gratification of the flesh as tantamount to “a dog returning to its
vomit.” Although this example may be repugnant, a dog returns to its
vomit because the dog’s sense of smell has indicated to him that it is
attractive. Also, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in
the mud” (2 Peter 2:20-22). Quite simply, the sow returns to her
wallowing because it feels good - right now!
These
scriptures illuminate for us a basic principle of the nature of
sin. Sin can smell good, look good, taste good, sound good and feel
good - without being truly good at all. True
goodness is not something mankind is able to define, much less
practice, apart from the supernatural influence of God’s healing grace
in our hearts. Thus, where there is the absence of God’s healing
influence in the soul, man may attempt through transference to find
what feels good right now using his corrupted desires to guide him.
Bible Characters in Transference
Although
transference is often rooted in hurts from the past, not all motivation
for transference is located in some mental archive, buried long ago in
the deep recesses of the human psyche. Consider the transference
activities of these well-known biblical characters as they responded to
current events in their lives.
Experiencing
a separation from God’s goodness and love through sin,
Adam, in desperation, attempted to minimize the shame of his
irresponsibility by an act of transference, spreading the blame both to
God and to Eve and away from himself.
The man
said, “the woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit
from the tree, and I ate it.”
-Genesis 3:12 (Italics mine)
In
Genesis 4:2-8, we observe Cain’s anger when the Lord rejects Cain’s
offering, but accepts the offering of his brother, Abel. Cain, in a
classic transference, lures Abel to a field and kills him in his anger.
Instead of honestly dealing with his anger at God for rejecting his
offering, Cain makes Abel into his scapegoat. His issues were really
with God and his own personal shame, but, unwilling to repent, he
sought relief by expressing his anger at someone else.
Genesis
37:1-24 gives us another account of the use of transference to
deal with a perceived rejection. Verse 4 states, “When his brothers saw
that their father (Jacob) loved him (Joseph) more than any of them,
they hated him (Joseph) and could not speak a kind word to him.” Verse
20 reveals the direction and depravity of the brother’s transference:
“Come now, let’s kill him (Joseph) and throw him into one of these
cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him.” (Words in
parenthesis mine).
Disappointed
that their father Jacob loved Joseph more than any of
them, Joseph’s brothers directed their anger toward Joseph, in an
attempt to find temporary relief from the unresolved conflict (feelings
of rejection) within.
A bitter
heart is a poison root, which grows up quickly, to defile many
(Heb. 12:15).
The Antidote: Wisdom for Discernment and
Repentance
James 1:5 reveals God’s
promise of wisdom to
those who
desire to know
the way of truth. We are instructed to ask from God, without doubting,
believing that He is a “God, who gives generously to all without
finding fault.” “Without finding fault,” means that God has no
intention of shaming us for our previous folly, but, instead, He
desires that we come to the knowledge of the truth, so that we may
choose to be set free. He will share His holy wisdom with us, that we
may come to believe there is a better way. If then, we will believe in
His way, we can be freed from the many entrapments of fleshly
enticements that deceive us with their promises of fulfillment through
ungodly compensation.
God’s
position regarding transference is the same today as it was in
the beginning, when God gave Cain the chance to make the right choice:
Then the
Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face
downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?”
-Genesis 4:6-7
Cain
had made an inappropriate offering to the Lord, but was
angry about what he perceived to be personal rejection. Although given
the opportunity of restoration, Cain chose to continue in his anger
instead of looking honestly at his behavior.
We have
not always had the opportunity or means to deal constructively
with past rejection, abandonment, and traumas at the time they
occurred. Sometimes, the situation may have been out of our control
because we were too young, too frightened, or we were deceived about
what was actually happening. It is often the case that we were
unavoidably the victim of another person’s evil intentions.
But,
with God’s wisdom, we are able today to examine our hearts,
repenting of the lies we have come to believe and the sinful attitudes
and ungodly behaviors that have risen up from our reactions to past
personal victimization.
Transferring Our Dependence onto God
In the end, most of the
seeming complexities of
transference are little
more than an idolatrous dependence upon people, inspired by the flesh.
Using a dysfunctional psychological mechanism, we are using people to
re-appropriate a sense of personal significance and depending on them
to bring us temporary satisfaction, enjoyment, or relief. This kind of
dependence on creature, instead of Creator, is idolatry. Psalm 4:2
exhorts us:
How
long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you
love delusions and seek false gods?
In
transference, whether we are punishing with anger or demanding
compensatory affection, we have turned to the wrong source and are
using the wrong method to effect either lasting resolution or
restoration. The true source is God and the only truly effective method
is repentance and forgiveness, which brings freedom from bondage and
emotional healing to us, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
When our
eyes are finally opened by God’s wisdom and we truly forsake
our misdirected fleshly determinations, the Holy Spirit begins to heal
our hearts from past hurts. He does this, not by trying to fix the
past, but by supernaturally separating us from the ways of the old
nature, which have been luring us toward compensation through
transference (Rom. 2:28-29; Rom. 8:13).
After
the Holy Spirit separates us from the misdirected desires that
originated in the old nature, we begin to grow into the new person we
were always meant to be in Christ Jesus, able to experience the kind of
peaceful, loving relationship with God and man for which mankind was
originally designed. This peace is realized as we experience the
resurrection life of Christ in those previously unrepentant,
unconverted segments of our hearts.
No
longer need our lives be ruled by the relentless intrigues of our
love-starved souls, but, instead, we can enjoy the fulfillment of our
greatest need, a dynamic and intimate love relationship with our
God.
Redefined by Love
And I pray that you,
being
rooted and established in love,
may have
power,
together
with all the saints,
to grasp
how wide and long and high and deep
is the
love of Christ,
and to
know
this
love that surpasses knowledge –
that you
may be filled to the measure
of all
the fullness of God.
-Eph.
3:16-19
Copyright
©
2000 by R. Thomas Brass
All
rights reserved
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