[Scene and symbol as driving forces. The unconscious fantasy in the transference]

Scene and Symbol as Motive Forces. Unconscious fantasy in transference.--Psychoanalysis regards unconscious fantasy as the motive force in human life. The analytic situation provides a framework for the crystallisation of unconscious fantasies. In the transference process fundamental scenes from childhood are reenacted, organised in terms of symbols and charged with meaning. With reference to a number of actual cases, the author demonstrates that scenically condensed, repressed conflicts thus develop psychic virulence and that in this scenic context the so-called Zeigarnik effect brings the unconscious fantasy to a standstill, allowing it to live on in the memory as an unconcluded action. Conclusion is however a necessary condition for forgetting. Only when this standstill is overcome via transference is psychic growth possible again.