Interpersonal guilt and transference dimensions: an empirical investigation

Some of the authors that studied the relation between transference and psychopathology belongs to the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group. They did their research following the Control Mastery Theory model (CMT; Weiss, 1993; Silberschatz, 2005). According to the authors, Personality is a predictor of the quality of Transference but this relation is also influenced, and mediated, by Interpersonal Guilt. Guilt may be the source of both defenses and transference, and the patient uses it to protect himself and his therapist from dangers. Following this theory, Guilt, interpreted like interpersonal and prosocial, is a dysfunctional emotion when fed by Pathogenic Beliefs (erroneous assumptions that bring the person to explain his behavior like necessary to avoid guilt feelings and disloyalty) and it may be a Transference manifestation or its organizer. The patient may idealize, sexualize or devaluate his therapist; he may be worried about being a source of pain for his analyst, in the same way he was worried, once, about causing pain to his relatives (Bush, 2005). The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the relation between Interpersonal Guilt and Transference. The measures used in this study are the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale – 15 (Gazzillo et al., in press) to assess Guilt; and the Personality Relationship Questionnaire (Bradley et al., 2005; Tanzilli et al., 2017), to assess the transference. Preliminary analysis shows a significant relation between Survivor Guilt and Hostile transference dimension, as well as between Omnipotence Guilt and Positive/working alliance transference dimension; between Separation and Survivor Guilt and Anxious/preoccupied transference dimension and between Separation Guilt and Sexualized transference dimension. These results confirm the hypothesis that guilt, as interpersonal emotion, is primarily related to transference that is, by definition, a prosocial phenomena that distinguish the therapeutic situation.