One of the most important concepts associated with the psychodynamic tradition is the idea of transference, a phenomenon identified in psychoanalysis as the unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. Recognising the transference relationship and exploring its meanings has long been considered a crucial aspect of psychotherapeutic work - as Freud asserted, "An analysis without transference is an impossibility".

Klein believed that we have "to go back again and again in analysis to the fluctuations between objects, loved and hated, external and internal, which dominate early infancy". But for Winnicott the use of the analyst as object in the repetition of early relationships was part of a reciprocal dynamic, the therapist being an object waiting to be created and part of a larger, ongoing process of both therapist and patient being found by the other. In this we see the beginnings of intersubjective theory, in which transference is seen as contingent upon the here-and-now subjectivity and availability of the therapist.

For Lacan, transference is marked by the patient's expectation of the therapist as "the subject supposed to know". But how do we know what the patient/client needs us to know or what their history holds? How do we disentangle our own subjectivity from that of the other to grasp their internal object-relational structures, expectations, needs and desires?

In contemporary relational psychoanalysis, it would be argued that it is through our own feelings, enactments and imaginings that the therapist becomes the subject who knows what the client or patient needs to convey. Here, transference is seen not only as a result of the patient's past but as the product of an intersubjective field created in the relationship, where transference and countertransference are reciprocal. In this shared space the therapist's responses are both the sensitive detectors of the patient's object-relational expectations and the co-created result of their living relationship.

Transference cannot be discussed without reference to countertransference, and this set of 4 morning mini-conferences is twinned afternoon counterparts. This way of organising the discussion may be seen as participating in a false dichotomy. However, the structure enables participants to engage with both traditional and contemporary theoretical approaches. Not all of the speakers agree that transference theory can be replaced by intersubjective theory and we anticipate a rich revitalising of ideas in the range of presentations.