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CLINICAL NOTES SERIES
ON THE TRANSFERENCE AND THE COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE
Pat Radford (1970). ‘Transference,’ and ‘Counter-Transference,’ in Basic
Psychoanalytic Concepts on Metapsychology, edited by Humberto Nagera (London:
George Allen and Unwin Ltd), The Hampstead Clinic Library, pp. 168-206.
INTRODUCTION
The most important concept in clinical psychoanalysis is the transference. This is
because the analyst cannot open the head of the patient and take a look. The
workings of the unconscious are inferred through its manifestations in the transference.
The transference can take on a positive or a negative form. A positive transference
usually takes on a negative dimension when the analysis proceeds into greater
depths. Furthermore, it is characterised by ‘ambivalence.’1 In other words it appears
that the patient will experience both positive and negative feelings for the analyst
(like he does for his parents). This is where an inexperienced analyst can lose his
patient. Such is the case with examiners and stakeholders as well. It is therefore
important to learn what Sigmund Freud has to teach us about the clinical dynamics of
the transference. As Freud knew only too well, the transference is not specific to the
Freudian clinic; it takes on an ‘extramural’ form as well. It is important to note that,
as Jacques Lacan was fond of putting it, wherever there is a ‘subject presumed to
know,’ there will be a transference in the analytic sense of the term.2 Both clinical
and extra-mural transferences have a feature in common; they are asymmetrical in
structure. Though Freud doesn’t use the term ‘asymmetry,’ it is obvious that his
1 See Pat Radford (1970). ‘Ambivalence,’ Basic Psychoanalytic Concepts on Metapsychology
(London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd), The Hampstead Clinic Library, pp. 130-138.
2 See Jacques Lacan (1973, 1977). TheFour Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, translated
by Alan Sheridan, edited by Jacques-Alain Miller (London: Penguin Books), passim.

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clinical descriptions of the transference have this dimension written all over them. I
say this at the outset because the relationship between the participants and the
stakeholders in the contemporary financial system is constantly generating
transferences. Most of these relationships are also asymmetrical in terms of power
dynamics, information flows, and levels of understanding. That is why what
Sigmund Freud has to teach us about the relationship between the analyst and the
patient in terms of both the transference and the counter-transference will help us to
make sense of the affective dynamics of the financial system. The transference can be
defined as the full-range of affects experienced by the patient for the analyst; the
counter-transference constitutes the affects experienced by the analyst for the
patient. The main challenge in transferential dynamics is that ‘inappropriate affects’
and ‘false connections’ that analysts and patients experience and make about each
other when they transfer affects from their own past to the present will abruptly end
the treatment and leave both the analyst and the patient feeling disappointed with
the lack of progress in the treatment. These then are a few problems in mental health
that will be of interest to not only clinical practitioners, but also to the monetary
authorities and the legal system.3
KEEPING THE ANALYSIS GOING
Their main priority then should be to keep the analysis going without either party
seeking a premature termination or acting out any of the themes that were activated
in the analysis outside the space of the clinic.4 This is easy to say but extremely
difficult to pull off day after day given that an analyst may have any number of
patients. In other words, it is a lot easier for the patient to work-through his positive
or negative transference to the analyst than for the analyst to work through a
positive or a negative counter-transference to a patient. An analyst can only survive
the relentless ordeal if he has himself been trained through a personal analysis with
an analyst of the same clinical orientation. Though not all schools of analysis
differentiate between the transference and the counter-transference, there is broad
agreement amongst the different schools that analysts and patients can affect each
other in ways that can be transformative if all goes well. If, however, things do not
3 For papers on these themes, see H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. and Stuart F. Spicker (1978).
Mental Health: Philosophical Perspectives (Dordecht-Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company).
4 The desire of the analyst, according to Jacques Lacan, is precisely this: to keep the analysis
going. For a clinical definition of acting out that can terminate the treatment, see Charles
Rycroft (1968, 1995). ‘Acting Out,’ A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (London: Penguin
Books), pp. 1-2. See also Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis (1973, 1988). ‘Acting
Out,’ The Language of Psychoanalysis, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, introduction by
Daniel Lagache (London: Karnac Books), pp. 4-6.

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go off well, it can destroy an analyst’s confidence in his ability to practice analysis as
a clinician.5 That is why these clinical notes attempt to describe and differentiate
between the transference and the counter-transference. These notes should be useful
not only to professional clinicians but also to any stakeholder in the financial system,
including political leaders, who are subject to demands by the members of their
respective companies, teams, firms, groups, and other larger social entities. The
success with which these stakeholders can lead these entities without experiencing a
loss of stability while doing so will be a function of their ability to overcome the
internal limitations in their capacity to contain the affects that constitute the counter-
transference. It is not my intention to say that all stakeholders have clinical
ambitions; not at all. I use the term ‘counter-transference’ to indicate the fact that
they must manage extra-mural transferences vis-à-vis their followers. That is why the
‘give-and-take’ between central bankers and psychoanalysts in recent years has
proved to be useful for both parties.
SUBJECT PRESUMED TO KNOW
A leading central banker like Ben Bernanke or Mark Carney will find himself in the
locus of the ‘subject presumed to know’ the secret of ‘calmness and stability’ in the
ongoing attempts to stabilize the financial system in the wake of the financial crisis
of 2007-08.6 Those systemically important stakeholders who are subject to exams in
the stabilization process by these examiners will resist in ways that bear a resemblance to
patients on the couch. But, most importantly, these stakeholders will transfer affects to
these central bankers that are based on a false connection in their unconscious
because they see; or think they see, a resemblance between early caretakers like their
own parents and these stabilizers. That is why stabilizers have to equip themselves
with a theory of the counter-transference in order to themselves stay stable under
provocation, as Mark Carney, for instance, is reputed for being.7 Provoking the
5 See, for instance, Dylan Evans (1996, 1997). ‘Transference,’ An Introductory Dictionary of
Lacanian Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge), pp. 211-214; and Bruce Fink (2007). ‘Handling
Transference and Counter-Transference,’ Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique: A Lacanian
Approach for Practitioners (New York: W. W. Norton and Company), pp. 126-188.
6 There is a growing literature on this theme. Books relevant to these clinical notes include
but are not limited to the following. See Vince Cable (2009). The Storm: The World Economic
Crisis & What it Means (London: Atlantic Books); Wolfgang Münchau (2010); The Meltdown
Years: The Unfolding of the Global Economic Crisis (New York: McGraw Hill); Gary B. Gorton
(2013). Misunderstanding Financial Crises: Why We Don’t See Them Coming (Oxford: Oxford
University Press); and Ben S. Bernanke (2013). The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis:
Lectures by Ben S. Bernanke (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
7 For the role played by stabilizers, like Mark Carney, see Robert J. Shiller (2012). ‘Policy
Makers in Charge of Stabilizing the Economy,’ Finance and the Good Society (Princeton and
Oxford: Princeton University Press), pp. 111-118.

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analysts within the space of the transference is not a contingent aspect of certain
analyses, but is almost a constitutive feature when the patient feels that he is being
hystericized in the analysis. So, needless to say, there will be a matching of wits and
a hysterical tug of war between the patient and the analyst and between
stakeholders and their examiners in the monetary system. The main burden of these
clinical notes is to explore these parallels in the attempt to demonstrate the
usefulness of the Freudian model of subjectivity, the unconscious, and the clinical
dynamics of the transference and the counter-transference within the larger context
of the financial system.8 I will argue that transferential affects emerge almost
automatically in situations characterised by any significant form of asymmetry
whether this concerns the flows of affects, information, or knowledge. In other
words, these notes attempt to situate the relevance of clinical dynamics within the extra
mural space of the financial system. These are the reasons why Ben Bernanke is fond of
saying that nearly 98 percent of monetary policy is about managing the psychology
of stakeholders; only 2 percent of the efforts of central bankers goes into the technical
determination of interest rates.9 The layperson is however under the impression that
98 percent of the effort put in by central bankers is about the technical determination
of interest rates on the basis of the data crunched by staff economists in central
banks. That is why I routinely invoke Ben Bernanke and Mark Carney in my articles,
essays, reviews, and posts on psychoanalysis.
THEORY OF THE SUBJECT
In Freud’s own lifetime the main areas where psychoanalytic insights were ‘applied’
was in areas like anthropology, art, literature, and religion.10 I however have good
reason to believe that if the financial crisis has taught us anything it is that the time
has finally arrived for central bankers and psychoanalysts to take each other
seriously. Not only will these exchanges revive the fortunes of clinical and applied
psychoanalysis, it will also make it possible for central bankers to address the 98
percent of their ‘remit,’ as Mark Carney is fond of putting it, with a fully-articulated
theory of the subject that is available in the work of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan.
Customary readers of my essays will recollect that I compared Ben Bernanke’s calm
8 See, for instance, Bruce Fink (1995). The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance
(Princeton: Princeton University Press). See also Bruce Fink (2011). ‘Psychoanalysis, Money
and the Global Financial Crisis,’ New Formations, Vol. 72, pp. 20-32.
9 For more on such themes, see the Ben Bernanke blog on monetary policy at the Brookings
Institute at Washington DC.
10 For a recent Lacanian foray in ‘applied psychoanalysis,’ see Jacques-Alain Miller and
Maire Jaanus (2013). We’re all Mad Here, Culture/Clinic, Vol. 1, Applied Lacanian
Psychoanalysis (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press).

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manner to Sigmund Freud’s clinical persona as early as 2008 in early drafts of ‘Big Ben:
On Federal Reserve Communications.’ Since Ben Bernanke and Mark Carney signal
together under the aegis of ‘benchmarks’ in central banking, I am not in the least
surprised by the fact that they are both preoccupied with the 98 percent of the
analytic iceberg that remains under the water. What is it that corresponds then in
central banking to the Freudian imperative to keep the analysis going? My answer to this
question might annoy systemically important stakeholders, but I am sure that the
Federal Reserve and the Bank of England will agree with me on this. The answer is
to simply keep the exams going. This might appear cruel but it is what Sigmund Freud
thought constitutes the mainstay of analysis; this is the central banker’s equivalent of
abstinence. If the stakeholder’s demand for love within the transference is taken up
seriously, the central banker will make the same mistake that the stakeholder’s
parents made which rendered them either neurotic or unstable as adults. That is
why the Mark Carneys of the world must hold their nerve when they are insulted
and dubbed as no better than ‘neo-Nazis.’ Such a ‘compliment’ from a patient is
proof that Mark Carney has succeeded in ‘hystericizing’ them.
REWIRING THE UNCONSCIOUS
In other words, what such patients or stakeholders complain of is the need to
completely re-wire their unconscious in order to remain stable within or at the
periphery of the financial system. This is, interestingly enough, precisely the goal of
Lacanian analysis; it is to hystericize the obsessional subject in order to get him to
face up to the truth of his desire. A stakeholder’s ego defences will not be shed
effectively unless they are subject to hystericization by stabilizers. It says a lot about
Mark Carney’s commitment to his profession that he has refused to back down
under threats from stakeholders who do not want their lack of stability to be
exposed to either themselves or to others. The sheer proliferation of terms like
‘break,’ ‘breaking,’ and ‘break down,’ in the American media in recent years to
describe the state of the nervous system of ‘systemically important stakeholders’ in
the financial system is testimony to the overwhelming rigor with which the U.S.
Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have gone about their task. In order to
appreciate the enormity of the stabilization process however readers must, in
addition to reading about these bankers in the financial press, also acquaint
themselves with the theories of the transference and the counter-transference that
constitutes the clinical and meta-psychological mainstay of both Freudian and
Lacanian psychoanalysis.11 To dismiss Mark Carney as a ‘sadistic neo-Nazi’ is to
11 See, for instance, Stephanie Griffith-Jones et al (2010). Time for a Visible Hand: Lessons from
the 2008 World Financial Crisis (Oxford: Oxford University Press); Colette Soler (1996).
‘Transference,’ Reading SeminarsI and II: Lacan’s Return to Freud, edited by Richard Feldstein

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completely miss the point. There must have been any number of hysterical patients
who would have taunted their analysts with similar designations. That is the
‘occupational hazard,’ as organizational theorists or an HR expert might put it, of
trying to rewire a systemically important stakeholder’s unconscious in the financial
system.
SEDUCING THE STABILIZERS
The transference was first discovered in the case of Anna O, a patient of Sigmund
Freud’s collaborator, Josef Breuer. The significance of this case is that it clearly
revealed the ‘libidinal nature’ of the positive transference. Breuer’s patient not only
experienced a hysterical pregnancy; Breuer was forced to terminate the treatment.
Breuer then went on a holiday with his wife who felt neglected by the enormous
effort that Breuer was putting in to cure this patient who was later revealed to be
Bertha Pappenheim, a feminist. The transferential dimension in this case is the
hysterical pregnancy that Bertha experienced; the counter-transferential dimension
is the fact that Breuer promptly impregnated his wife when they went for a holiday
following the termination of Bertha’s treatment. It turns out that neither the patient
nor the analyst suspected the existence of what we nowadays term the ‘libidinal
economy of the transference.’ An important question here is this: Did Breuer himself
act out his desire for Bertha by impregnating his wife? Or, as an American movie
maker might put it: Was Breuer thinking of Bertha in bed? The main reason that Breuer
himself resisted clinical analysis (given that he started and remained a physician)
was that he was not equipped with a theory of the transference. It was as difficult for
Breuer to work-through the counter-transference to Bertha as it must have been for
her to work-through the transference. This encounter between Bertha and Breuer
becomes the libidinal paradigm in the Freudian model of the subject for
transferential dynamics.12 Much of the advice that Freud gives physicians who are
training to become analysts relates to the importance of keeping the analysis going
in a state of abstinence. Freud is keen to point out that the ‘transference love’ of the
patient is based on contingent similarities between the patient and the analyst; if the
analyst allows himself to be seduced by the patient the analysis is over. If however
et al (Albany: SUNY Press), pp. 56-60; and Andrew J. Lewis (2000). ‘From the Work of
Transference to the Transference of Work,’ analysis, No. 9, pp. 138-149.
12 For a history of the part played by this case in the development of Freudian
psychoanalysis, see Joseph Schwartz (1999). ‘Hysteria and the Origins of the Analytic Hour,’
Cassandra’s Daughter: A History of Psychoanalysis (New York: Penguin Books), pp. 40-62. See
also Patrick J. Mahony (1992). ‘A Psychoanalytic Translation of Freud,’ Translating Freud,
edited by Darius Gray Ornston, Jr. (New Haven: Yale University Press), pp. 24-47. Mahony
calls attention, in his essay, to the number of myths that have accumulated around this
particular case since it marks the beginning of psychoanalysis.

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the analyst spurns the love offered by the patient, it will lead to resistance. The
patient would rather, Freud is keen to note, be cured by love rather than do all the
hard work involved in analysis. If the analyst gives way to the hysterical ruses of the
patient then an analysis, by definition, cannot be completed. These are also the kind
of affects that are unleashed in systemically important stakeholders when they are in
analysis with stabilizers like Mark Carney. They alternate between cursing him and
seducing him; what they really want is to get him to lay-off their unconscious. What
should Mark Carney do? The analytically informed answer is that he should keep the
analysis going. In other words, he should keep the exams going until he is convinced
that he has done what he could to rewire the patient’s unconscious. If Carney himself gets
either hystericized or seduced then the hysterical ruses of the stakeholder will make
it impossible to stabilize the financial system. It will be tantamount to a form of
regulatory capture. In other words, Mark Carney should hold his nerve going
forward. Any number of systemically important stakeholders will be willing to
seduce Mark Carney if they can get him to back-off from his relentless commitment
to stability. Whether Mark Carney will survive this stint in the Bank of England
depends on whether he can resist the endemic temptations of regulatory capture; a
danger that Janet Yellen is only too aware of.
INTERRUPTING THE TRANSFERENCE
Every patient has a stereotypical way of going about the transference; the task of the
analyst is to delineate it in ways that will be therapeutic for the patient. There is
however an unresolved question here. Should the analyst interpret the transference?
In other words, should he point out, like a pedagogue, that the patient is not really in
love but is suffering in the affective throes of oedipal passion? Freud himself was
willing to interpret the transference because, I suspect, he was teaching himself
psychoanalysis in his celebrated case histories. But contemporary analysts are a lot
more cautious. This is especially the case with Lacanians who would rather
‘interrupt the transference’ using the structure of the variable session rather than
‘interpret the transference’ by explaining to the patient what they are doing. For
Lacan, therapeutic outcomes do not depend on the patient having a conscious understanding
of what is going on.13 Lacan is not as keen as Freud was to make the unconscious
conscious; Lacan thought that such an approach might be counter-productive. It is
like a surgeon waking up the patient at periodic intervals in the operating theatre to
explain what is going on. Such an approach will protect the patient’s rights but also
13 This is not only true for the patient, but also for the analyst. For essays on this theme, see
Bruce Fink (2014). Against Understanding:Commentary and Critique in a Lacanian Key (London
and New York: Routledge), Vol. 1 and Bruce Fink (2014). Against Understanding: Cases and
Commentary in a Lacanian Key (London and New York: Routledge), Vol. 2.

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ensure that she does not survive the operation. Freud was given to invoking the
surgical analogy as well. Freud felt that the analyst must be as cold hearted as a
surgeon who can save the patient’s life only if he does not get too distracted by the
affects that he must navigate on the way. Interpreting the transference can
exacerbate the resistance and lead to bouts of regression on the part of the patient. It
is important to remember that analysis is based on an asymmetrical model and not
on a contractual model of patient care.14
LIBIDINAL ECONOMY OF MONEY
Pat Radford sets out the types of transference in his conceptual essay before
explaining the clinical significance of the transferential mechanisms involved. As
previously mentioned, the transference could be positive or negative; it can also be
ambivalent in orientation. This is just another way of saying it includes both
transference love and transference hate. Mark Carney must be familiar with these
affects by now. There is nobody that stakeholders love to hate more than Mark
Carney; this takes the form of attempts on their part to redefine his remit. They might
also quibble about whether stability is a Bank of England preoccupation or whether
it is being forced on them because he takes the additional responsibility of ‘fighting
threats to stability for the G20.’ Will the real Mark Carney please stand up? Ratford also
mentions the ‘compulsion to repeat’ and the need to work-through whatever takes
on a compulsive dimension in the analysis. Stakeholders might have seen a recurrent
pattern to the themes involved in ‘stress tests’ conducted by the monetary
authorities; they necessarily involve a form of repetition. If the stakeholder waits a
while, he will see another iteration of the same themes. Those stakeholders who
passed last time may not necessarily pass in the next round of exams. This is the
systemic pattern of working through that is required by the monetary authorities
irrespective of what the results might be on any given occasion. The main range of
affects that both analysts and the monetary authorities encounter are the following:
frustration, hostility, resistance, and even regression. Those following the process of
‘demonetisation’ in India, for instance, will be familiar with these negative affects.
The correct response in such situations for the monetary authorities is to always hold
firm. These affects are not just a consequence of the inconvenience generated by
demonetisation; they are also a consequence of the fact that money resonates in the
unconscious. That is why psychoanalysts know that social hypocrisy has mainly two
objects in the unconscious: money and sex. In neither case is it possible for the
patient to free associate without revealing some measure of hypocrisy. The main
14 For a description of Lacanian analysis, see Bruce Fink (1997,1999). A Clinical Introduction to
Lacanian Psychoanalysis:Theory and Technique (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press).

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question then, in terms of the libidinal economy of the subject, is this: Which plays a
greater role in constituting social hypocrisy? Is it money? Or is it sex? 15
CONCLUSION
These then are just a few suggestions on how the ‘symbolic economy of the
monetary system’ is affected by the ‘libidinal economy of money.’16 That is why
knowledge of psychoanalysis can be of immense value to the monetary authorities.
This is the case for both the 98 percent of psychology that central bankers do and for
the 2 percent of interest rates that they must determine at periodic intervals. These
clinical notes on the transference and the counter-transference should, I think, not
merely explain to central bankers the significance of what they are doing in terms of
the libidinal economy of money; and the forms of resistance that they must
overcome amongst systemically important stakeholders; but, most importantly,
make an urgent case for increasing the levels of interaction between psychoanalysts
and financial analysts if we are to avoid the early emergence of the next financial
crisis. What the monetary authorities and the psychoanalysts can learn from each
other then is the difference between the ‘symbolic economy of money’ and the
‘libidinal economy of money.’ This will increase the probability of either preventing
the next financial crisis or at least mitigating it.
SHIVA KUMAR SRINIVASAN
15 For essays on this theme by a renowned psychoanalyst based at INSEAD, see Manfred
Kets de Vries (2009).‘Meditations on Money,’ Sex, Money, Happiness,and Death: The Quest for
Authenticity (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan), The INSEAD Business Press
Series, pp. 71-106. See also the essays in John Forrester (1997). Truth Games: Lies, Money, and
Psychoanalysis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
16 For an extremely lucid introduction to money and the monetary system, see David A.
Moss (2007). ‘A ShortHistory of Money and Monetary Policy in the United States,’ A Concise
Guide to Macroeconomics: What Managers, Executives, and Students Need to Know (Boston:
Harvard Business School Press), pp. 87-97. See also R. W. Hafer (2005). ‘Money,’ The Federal
Reserve System: An Encyclopaedia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press), pp. 258-262