Why You Project the Past Onto the Present Transference is the process by which feelings, desires, and expectations from past relationships, particularly with parents, are unconsciously transferred onto current relationships. You relate to new people as if they were significant figures from your past. The boss becomes the father, the romantic partner becomes the mother, the therapist becomes the parent who failed you. This is not conscious choice or metaphor. It is automatic psychological process operating outside awareness, shaping how you perceive and respond to people in the present. The concept emerged from Freud’s clinical work when he noticed patients...