““The overreactor is responsible, as the psychological term puts it, for the 'transference' of an emotion from the past on to someone in the present -- who perhaps doesn't entirely deserve it. Our minds are, oddly, not always good at knowing what era they are in. They jump a little too easily, like an erstwhile victim of burglary who keeps a gun by the bed and is startled awake by every rustle. What's worse for the loved ones standing in the vicinity is the people in the throes of a transference have no easy way of knowing, let alone calmly explaining, what they are up to; they simply feel that their response is entirely appropriate to the occasion. Their partners, on the other hand, may reach a rather different and rather flattering conclusion: that they are distinctly odd -- and maybe even a little mad.””
