What occurs when clients project feelings from past relationships onto the therapist?

What occurs when clients project feelings from past relationships onto the therapist?

• A. Transference
• B. Countertransference
• C. Projection
• D. Resistance

Answer: (A)

Transference occurs when a client unconsciously redirects feelings and attitudes from important people in their past onto the therapist. In therapy, the therapist is viewed as a stand-in for those figures, so emotions such as love, anger, fear, or dependence may be aimed at the therapist as if they were the original person. This pattern helps reveal unresolved relational dynamics that the therapist can gently interpret to promote insight and change. Countertransference would involve the therapist’s own unresolved feelings influencing their responses; projection is attributing one’s own unacceptable thoughts to others in general; and resistance is the client’s reluctance to engage or progress, not the redirecting of past relationship emotions onto the therapist.

Transference occurs when a client unconsciously redirects feelings and attitudes from important people in their past onto the therapist. In therapy, the therapist is viewed as a stand-in for those figures, so emotions such as love, anger, fear, or dependence may be aimed at the therapist as if they were the original person. This pattern helps reveal unresolved relational dynamics that the therapist can gently interpret to promote insight and change.

Countertransference would involve the therapist’s own unresolved feelings influencing their responses; projection is attributing one’s own unacceptable thoughts to others in general; and resistance is the client’s reluctance to engage or progress, not the redirecting of past relationship emotions onto the therapist.