The client–therapist relationship is of vital importance in psychoanalytic
therapy. As a result of this relationship, particularly in working through the
transference situation, clients acquire insights into the workings of their unconscious
process. Awareness of and insights into repressed material are the
bases of the analytic growth process. Clients come to understand the association
between their past experiences and their current behavior. The psychoanalytic
approach assumes that without this dynamic self-understanding
there can be no substantial personality change or resolution of present
conflicts.