Transference Causes Divorce
Monday, April 13, 2009 Guest post by Tim Kellis, author of “Equality: The Quest for the Happy Marriage”
If couples were to only understand what they are doing when they introduce anger and arguments into the relationship then they would hopefully have the motivation to solve their mental imbalances, their insecurities. The unfortunate reality is the only person who can overcome insecurities is the person with the insecurities, not the spouse, not the friends, and not the parents.
Transference is one of the most basic concepts in the psychology industry. This concept states that if you discuss your emotions with someone then you will transfer those emotions onto that person. In fact, Freud is who he is today because of transference. An amazing discovery is that Freud didn’t discover therapy, a Joseph Breuer did, by getting his first patient, who became famous as Anna O, to discuss the root causes of her mental problems. Breuer discovered that when he did she was able to overcome them. Unfortunately for us today, Anna O also developed the first case of transference when she developed a “hysterical pregnancy” stemming from fantasies about him where she thought she was having Joseph Breuer’s child. When he realized this he abruptly referred her to a colleague, went on vacation with his wife, and treated Anna O no more. Unfortunately for Breuer, he “was uncomfortable with the topic of sexuality and though at the moment of the hysterical pregnancy he had ‘had the key in his hand’ (as Freud later wrote to a friend), he dropped it...[and] in conventional horror took flight”. Freud took over and completely abandoned the influence of our past on our present with his biology theory.
Transference is used today in the relationship between the therapist and the patient. This is the most basic tenet in the therapy process, with the theory that if the patient discusses his or her emotions then he or she becomes vulnerable to the advice of the therapist. Ideally therapists are supposed to utilize this vulnerability to help the patient understand the sources of the insecurities. This is also why the patient is vulnerable to fall in love with the therapist.
We just need to take this notion one step further. Instead of transference between the patient and the therapist we just need to understand the notion that within negative relationships the one with the insecurities is transferring the negative emotions behind those insecurities from the source onto the spouse. In the example of the alcoholic parent, if there exists negative feelings about the alcoholic parent that remain unsolved then the continued anger at the spouse because of the association of the spouse having a drink and the parent, then those feelings are eventually transferred onto the spouse. Individual examples of anger are called projections and transference occurs when those emotions are completely transferred.
About the author
Renowned Wall Street analyst Tim Kellis takes on what could be considered society’s biggest problem today: divorce. The journey that led to him tackling such a significant issue was both personal and professional. After a successful career that eventually landed him on Wall Street, Tim met what he thought was the girl of his dreams, only to see that relationship end with bitterness and anger. The journey included work with a marital therapist, and after he discovered the therapist wasn’t really helping decided to tackle the issue himself.
Ambition and a strong aptitude for math helped lead Kellis to discover how to make relationships work. His math skills led directly to an engineering degree, nine years in the telecommunications industry, an MBA in finance, and finally on to Wall Street, where he became the very first semiconductor analyst to focus on the communications market.
After publishing a 300-page initiation piece entitled Initiating Coverage of the Semiconductor Industry: Riding the Bandwidth Wave, Kellis became a leading semiconductor analyst at one of the biggest firms on Wall Street. The experience he gained as a Wall Street analyst provided an excellent backdrop for becoming an expert on relationships, and resulted in his relationship book entitled Equality: The Quest for the Happy Marriage.
You can visit his website at www.happyrelationships.com or his blog at www.questforthehappyrelationship.blogspot.com
About the book
The journey through “Equality: The Quest for the Happy Marriage” includes a trip through history, where the most significant lessons civilization has learned over the last few thousand years are used to demonstrate not only the way to set up a positive relationship, but the causes of that relationship turning negative.
Additionally, I dive into the science of psychology to answer the most basic question anyone asks who goes through the pain of divorce, “why didn’t we work out”?
The basic premise of the book is that we have a 50% divorce rate yet there doesn’t appear to be anything happening to help solve this problem. Just because divorce has become a significant part of our culture doesn’t mean we should simply sit back while countless families suffer through the agony of splitting up.
The toll to society tomorrow because of our culture of divorce today is impossible to determine but future generations will have to deal with this change to the culture that has occurred over the last two generations.
For the first time in history I elaborate on a psychological solution to our psychological problems so that couples can learn how to change the direction of their negative relationships. In essence, the psychological objective is to understand what happens mentally between two people who make one of the most important decisions of their lives, to get married.
The objective of this book is to provide real, logical help to couples so that they can learn how to stay out of the divorce trap. The bottom line is to learn how to set up your relationship so that you can maintain a happy, healthy, harmonious, loving, affectionate, intimate marriage.
Equality: The Quest for the Happy Marriage (Happy Relationships) (Kindle Edition)
Format: Kindle Edition
Publisher: Gilgamesh Publishging; 1st edition (December 15, 2007)
Reader Comments (2)
Although I am not sure that I would totally agree with everything this book covers, I do think it would be an interesting read.
Your book sounds like an interesting take on relationships.