The Storm That Must Arrive: On Negative Transference and the Risk of Staying Pleasant

There is a quiet temptation in analytic work: to remain in the realm of the agreeable. Sessions that flow smoothly, a patient who is cooperative, appreciative, even warmly attached—these can feel like signs of progress. The relationship appears intact, the alliance secure.

And yet, something may be missing.

Psychoanalysis has long recognized that alongside love, gratitude, and idealization, there emerges another, more troubling current: irritation, disappointment, envy, and sometimes outright hatred directed toward the analyst. This is negative transference. The question is not whether it will appear, but what happens if it does not—or if it is avoided.

Is Negative Transference Necessary?

Freud understood transference as the repetition of past relational patterns within the analytic relationship. This includes not only affectionate ties, but also ambivalence and aggression. To encounter only the “positive” side is to encounter only part of the patient’s internal world.

Negative transference, in this sense, is not a deviation from the process; it is central to it. It brings into the room experiences that are often disavowed, feared, or defended against. It allows the patient to express aggression in a setting where it can be thought about, rather than acted out or turned inward.

Without it, analysis risks remaining superficial. The deeper layers of conflict—particularly those involving anger, rivalry, and destructiveness—may remain untouched.

Can Analysis End Without It?

It is possible for an analysis to conclude without overt expressions of negative transference. The patient may report improvement, reduced symptoms, and a stable relationship with the analyst.

But the absence of negative transference raises a clinical question: has it truly been absent, or has it been avoided?

In some cases, the patient may fear that expressing anger will damage the relationship. In others, the analyst—consciously or unconsciously—may discourage such expressions by maintaining a stance that feels too fragile, too authoritative, or too invested in being liked.

When negative transference is not lived through in the analytic relationship, it may remain active elsewhere—displaced onto other relationships or internalized as self-criticism.

An analysis that bypasses aggression may achieve adaptation, but not necessarily transformation.

The Risk of Avoiding Aggression

Aggression is one of the most difficult affects to tolerate, for both patient and analyst. It carries the fantasy of destruction: If I express this, something will be lost—love, connection, safety.

Avoiding aggression may preserve the relationship in the short term, but it does so at a cost. The patient is left with an unintegrated aspect of their emotional life. Anger may be turned against the self, contributing to depression, inhibition, or psychosomatic symptoms.

Alternatively, it may emerge outside the analytic setting in less reflective forms—impulsivity, relational conflict, or somatic distress.

From a developmental perspective, the capacity to experience and express aggression without annihilating the object is crucial. It allows for the recognition that relationships can survive conflict, that the other is separate, and that ambivalence is tolerable.

“Preparing” Negative Transference

If negative transference is necessary, can it be prepared?

Not in the sense of being induced or staged. But the analytic setting can either facilitate or inhibit its emergence.

Preparation involves creating conditions in which aggression can be expressed without catastrophic consequences. This includes:

• A stable and reliable frame, which can hold emotional intensity
• An analyst who does not retaliate, withdraw, or collapse in the face of hostility
• A stance that welcomes all aspects of the patient’s experience, including those that are uncomfortable or disruptive

In this sense, the analyst’s task is paradoxical: to invite what is feared, while ensuring that it can be survived.

At times, this may involve recognizing subtle forms of negative transference—irritation, boredom, disengagement—and bringing them into the analytic conversation. It may also require tolerating periods of tension, misunderstanding, or rupture.

The Analyst’s Position

The emergence of negative transference inevitably evokes countertransference. The analyst may feel hurt, defensive, or even angry. These reactions are not signs of failure, but part of the intersubjective field.

The challenge is to use these reactions as information, rather than acting them out. This requires a capacity for self-reflection and, often, the support of supervision.

An analyst who can withstand being disliked—without withdrawing or retaliating—offers the patient a new relational experience. Aggression can be expressed, thought about, and integrated, rather than leading to loss or fragmentation.

From Destruction to Recognition

Winnicott described a crucial developmental moment: the infant’s destruction of the object, and the object’s survival. This survival allows the infant to recognize the object as external and real.

In the analytic setting, negative transference can serve a similar function. The patient “tests” the analyst with aggression. If the analyst survives—psychically, not by denying the impact but by containing it—the relationship deepens.

The analyst is no longer a projection, but a separate subject.

Conclusion

Negative transference is not merely a complication of analytic work; it is one of its essential pathways. It brings into the open what is often most difficult to face: aggression, disappointment, and the fear of loss.

An analysis that avoids these elements may remain harmonious, but incomplete.

To “prepare” negative transference is to prepare for conflict—not as failure, but as opportunity. It is to create a space where even the most destructive feelings can be experienced without destroying the relationship.

Only then can the full complexity of the patient’s inner world come into view.

References

• Freud, S. (1912). The Dynamics of Transference. Standard Edition, Vol. 12.
• Freud, S. (1915). Observations on Transference-Love. Standard Edition, Vol. 12.
• Klein, M. (1946). Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms. International Journal of Psychoanalysis.
• Winnicott, D. W. (1969). The Use of an Object. International Journal of Psychoanalysis.
• Racker, H. (1968). Transference and Countertransference. New York: International Universities Press.
• Green, A. (2001). The Dead Mother. In On Private Madness. London: Karnac.
• Ogden, T. H. (1994). The Analytic Third: Working with Intersubjective Clinical Facts. International Journal of Psychoanalysis.