Transference-Focussed Psychotherapy is based on the idea that real relationships we had in our childhood become internalised. These are called dyads. For example, if you had a parent who shouted at you a lot as a child, from a TFP perspective you would internalise both sides of this relationship i.e. both the frightened scared child and the frightening scary parent.

Now in adult life, certain triggers would cause this dyad to be activated and an individual would switch between the different sides of this dyad. TFP believes that these switches are often outside of our awareness, especially the aggressive side of the dyad and the therapy is based on bringing these dyads into awareness. Thus, TFP is fairly unique in the field of psychotherapy as it believes that real change can only occur when we come to recognize, accept and change the aggressive part of our nature.