Investigating transference : an integrative approach

From both psychoanalytic and social cognitive perspectives, organised mental structures are viewed as resulting in habitually patterned modes of interaction, of which transference phenomena are suggested to be a category. Theoretical descriptions of organised mental structures and transference are outlined. An original procedure for examining transference is presented. This utilises idiographic and nomothetic approaches and combines aspects of Andersen et al.'s methodology with a semantic space technique. In addition to exploratory analyses of the proposed methodology, a number of unresolved issues in transference research are investigated . These are, 1) the relative importance of parental versus non-parental significant others in transference phenomena; 2) the associations between individual difference variables and transference phenomena; and 3) the manipulation of transference phenomena. The research employed a sample of 40 female participants who were recruited from a non-clinical population. Results suggest that transference phenomena, defined in both absolute and relative terms, were produced by the methodology employed. Stimuli associated with parental significant others were found to elicit a significantly greater degree of transference phenomena than stimuli associated with non-parental significant others. Two individual difference variables (measures of self-esteem and cognitive complexity for the self) were found to be negatively correlated with degree of transference elicited in response to stimuli associated with parental significant others. Transference response associated with non-parental significant others was found to be moderated by exposure to stimuli suggested to facilitate mindfulness or controlled information processing. However, transference response associated with parental significant others was not moderated by exposure to these stimuli.