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Int. Rev. Psycho-Anal. (1982) 9, 287

INTERPRETATION-SOME GENERAL ASPECTS

O. H. D. BLOMFIELD, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA

ARGUMENT eighteenth century and has been discussed more

1. Interpretation: a basic contact with recently by Jaspers, Hartmann and Ricoeur,
the world 287 amongst others.
2. Explanation and understanding 288 In this interplay between the general and the
3. The setting for psychoanalytic particular, the act of interpretation is seen as a
interpretation 289 bridge between the working alliance and the
4. The form of psychoanalytic transference neurosis but since language has a life
interpretation 290 of its own, arising from its cultural history and
5. Interpretation, belief and reality 291 philosophical presuppositions, outside the in-
6. Interpretation, self-evidence and the dividual, both analyst and analysand are caught
hermeneutic circle 294 within the network of the restrictions, biases and
7. Interpretation and language 295 presuppositions of the language, or languages,
8. Example 298 they share.
SUMMARY 299 The whole paper hinges on Whitehead's (1927)
REFERENCES 300 view of symbolism and the fact that a relatively
ARGUMENT small number of primitive experiences open out
The concept of interpretation is discussed into an increasingly large number of symbolic
within the view of Language put forward by representations and that it is this reductive/
Langer (1942) and the cultural roots detailed by expansive gradient in symbolism that makes
Ekstein (1959), linking it to a hermeneutical interpretation possible and necessary. The paper
'interpretation of interpretation' as outlined by concludes with a brief sketch of the structure of
Palmer (1969). The setting in which psycho- the beginning of a session, illustrating in a
analytic interpretation takes place is defined so concrete way some of the points made.
that Ricoeur's (1969) view of psychoanalysis as
INTERPRETATION-SOME GENERAL ASPECTS
work may be seen as implying that interpretation
develops as a mutual activity between analyst and 1. Interpretation: a basiccontact with the world
analysand. That is, it emerges as an act of 'Every word has a history ... says Langer
symbolic creation as a result of the exercise of (1942), 'and through all the metamorphoses of its
analysis as an art. meaning '" [it] ... carries a certain trace of
The second part of the paper takes up the every meaning it has ever had, like an overtone,
thesis that at the moment of (mutative) inter- and every association it has acquired, like an
pretation 'a common possibility of perceptual aura, so that in living language practically no
grasp' must be shared by the therapist and word is a purely conventional counter, but always
patient; there must be an inter-related subjective a symbol with a "metaphysical pathos" ... Its
(i.e. mutual) field of possible perception. This is meaning depends partly on social convention and
linked to Whitehead's (1938) linking of 'under- partly on its history, its past company, even on
standing' and self-evidence and the concept of the the "natural symbolism" or suggestiveness of its
'hermeneutical circle' which originated in the sound'.

Presented at the 32nd International Psychoanalytical Congress, Helsinki, July 1981.

An earlier version of this paper was read to a meeting of the Victorian Association of Psychotherapists in October 1977.
 Copyrighted Material. For use only by 20021. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).
288 O. H. D. BLOMFIELD
The word 'interpretation' overlaps in its meta-
physical pathos with those of a constellation of
other words. Ekstein (1959) in a valuable paper
on 'The nature of the interpretive process'
discusses many of these. The verb 'to interpret' is
linked with 'to explain; to translate; to expand; to
elucidate; to understand; to appreciate; to con-
strue; to apprehend; to represent and in particu-
lar to show something by means of illustrative
representation ... an actor may interpret a
character, a musician a work of music, a painter a
landscape and so on'. Thus interpretations are not
necessarily expressed in language. An 'inter-
preter' may be someone who not only 'translates'
from one language or mode to another but 'gives
meaning to', say the will of God. But 'to interpret'
is a transitive verb; the interpretation of some-
thing is made to someone who must understand it.
As Devereux (1951) comments-the translation
of an English sentence into Chinese is not an
interpretation ifit is addressed to a Sioux Indian.
Ekstein (1959) points out-'The German word
"Deutung" has approximately all these meanings
but is also frequently used in religious or
superstitious contexts, for example, for proph-
ecies or for fortunetelling. A Deuter may be a
gypsy who reads the future in the palm of a
person or ... a seer who foretells the future,
attempts to predict the future from signs, such as
symbols in manifest dream content-as is true for
the interpretation of dreams as found in the Old
Testament or in the writings of antiquity' (p. 223).
Ekstein continues-'The German word "Inter-
pretation", incidentally never used by Freud, may
also be used in philosophical, religious or artistic
context. It refers frequently to the attempt to give
meaning to something and is burdened by certain
philosophical notions which state an essential
difference between the sciences which explain
(erklaerende Wissenschaften) and the sciences
which ... understand (verstehende Wissen-
schaften)'.
'Interpretation is more encompassing than the
linguistic world in which man lives, for even
animals exist by interpreting' (Palmer, 1969).
Every species inhabits a world constituted by its
own interpretive structuring. Its world is the
world it is possible for it to know. Food presented
1 The spider may be a representative of a mutant strain.
This does not alter the force of the example but raises the
to an individual, say a bird or a dog or cat will be
interpreted in terms of current needs and ex-
perience. Birds obviously interpret signs, of which
we are unaware, which guide them in their long
migratory flights.
A simple, but quite dramatic, example of the
basic nature of interpretation is given by the
behavioural variability of a small spider com-
monly found in Melbourne gardens in the
autumn. The web is organized around a curled
autumn leaf installed at the centre, which serves
as a shelter for the spider. There is a range of
relatively minor variations in the style and
construction of the webs, for example one can
find cases where the spider has made use of a
green leaf still attached to a rose bush, but which
was conveniently placed and curled. However, I
have a set of photographs showing one spider
who made an extraordinary architectural break-
through by making use of a snail's shell which has
been skilfully hoisted up and installed at the
centre of the web to serve the same purpose as the
autumn leaf, with the shell oriented so as not to
fill with water. The spider responded to the
potential of the form of the snail shell in relation
to its instinctual intentionality. It strikes me as an
example of a brilliant interpretation of the
possibilities of'form.'
Similarly, interpretation is also part of the
fabric of human existence. 'Human lifeis conceiv-
able without language, but not without inter-
pretation.'
Through interpretation we expand the possi-
bilities of the physical world and explore and
comprehend the possibilitiesof each other.
2. Explanation and understanding
Explanations usually relate an event to some
pre-existing coherent scheme, which mayor may
not be understood, while understanding involves
some experience of the psychical grasping of an
event, in a satisfying way, for which there mayor
may not be a coherent explanation available
immediately.
Hartmann (1927) picks up the distinction made
by Weber (19iI) and others between 'rational'
and 'sympathetic' evidence of understanding.
question of the understanding of interpretation in relation to
evolutionary change.
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INTERPRET A nON
In this the attempt is made to distinguish
between the grasping of meaning-structures, such
as the meanings of words or of the contents of
judgements, propositions and so on, and the
sympathetic grasping of mental processes when
other minds are involved. Hartmann points out
obvious difficulties that arise from this distinction,
as we are led to a grasp of the mental processes in
another by the understanding of the meaning and
senses of words, sentences and propositions. The
distinction between the 'sciences which explain
(erklaerende Wissenschaften)' and the 'sciences
which understand (verstehende Wissenschaften)'
is by no means a simple one and this is explored
in detail both in the classic paper of Hartmann's
(1927) and in the more recent book by von
Wright (1971). Hartmann quotes Dilthey (1924)
'We explain nature but we understand the mind'.
Hypotheses and deductions unify our experi-
ences of the natural world but interrelations are
found psychically 'in the actuality of experiencing
. . . that which is given of and in itself in inner
experience'. Hartmann comments 'the very thing
which, for Dilthey, is the centre of the personality
is precisely what has become the particular
subject matter of psychoanalysis which uses the
methods of the natural sciences'. From this point
Hartmann, in his remarkable paper, examines the
interplay between phenomenological psychology
(Jaspers, 1923) and explanatory psychology.
Hartmann's judgement is that 'deeper penetration
into the content of and the internal connections in
psychoses is, despite all methodological dis-
tinctions, what Jaspers' school and psycho-
analysis have in common-the great difference
. .. being that for psychoanalysis the experience
of the patient (be it of states or processes) is the
starting point of scientific work and not, as it is
for "understanding" psychology, the goal'.
This view would now be modified by taking
into account more lately developed views on the
nature of science itself (Polanyi, 1958; Grene,
1966, 1974; Toulmin, 1953) and the important
developments due to the French school in
psychoanalysis (Lacan, 1966; Laplanche &
Pontalis, 1967; Ricoeur, 1965).
3. The settingfor psychoanalytic interpretation
I want now to establish some aspects of the
'setting' in which psychoanalytic interpretation
takes place. Hartmann (1951) in his paper,
289
'Technical implications of ego psychology',
emphasizes 'the essential importance of keeping
psychoanalytic technique flexible, especially when
we are trying to establish what technique may
gain from additional scientific insight; also in
teaching one must avoid giving the student the
impression that actually a complete set of rules
exists which just his lack of experience prevents
him from knowing'.
However, the psychoanalytic method itself
does hinge on a single rule, the basic rule of free
association, the attempt to put thoughts or
feelings into words as they occur, regardless of
inhibitory influences, such as fear, embarrass-
ment, guilt or judgements of irrelevance, triviality
or irrationality, or, where these inhibitions are an
obstacle, to speak of the difficulty first. This basic
injunction attempts to bring the analyst into a
more authentic contact with the existential stream
of the patient's perceptions, feelings, memories
and anticipations, as far as they can be for-
mulated in words or gestures and shared with the
analyst; it is a guiding direction to communicate
ideas that freely irrupt.
Evenly suspended attention on the part of the
analyst is the complement to free association.
'For as soon as anyone deliberately concentrates
his attention to a certain degree, he begins to
select from the material before him; one point will
be fixed in his mind with particular clearness and
some other will be corresponding disregarded,
and in making this selection he will be following
his expectations or inclinations ... In making the
selection, if he follows his expectations he is in
danger of never finding anything but what he
already knows; and if he follows his inclinations
he will certainly falsify what he may perceive'
(Freud, 1912).
In a well-known letter (of 1817), Keats wrote
of 'Negative Capability' as: 'when a man is
capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries,
doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact
and reason .. .'
He described the contrasting state in: 'a Man
who cannot feel he has a personal identity unless
he has made up his Mind about everything '.'
[he] will never come at a truth as long as he lives;
because he is always trying at it' (see Bate, 1963).
Free association in the analysand and evenly
suspended attention in the analyst can be seen as
a practical application of Husserl's 'phenomeno-
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290 O. H. D. BLOMFIELD

logical reduction' ('epoche'), the suspension thus proceeds by a constant interplay between the
('bracketing') of judgement or preformed opinion transference neurosis and the 'working alliance'
so that phenomena are met as directly as possible and resistance and transference are seen as two
and their inherent structure grasped without aspects of the same thing.
distortion. Mutual phenomenological reduction As Stephen (1933) wrote, 'when free-
might be put forward as the central operant association really gets under way, the patient
principle of psychoanalysis. often does not know what he is telling. It comes in
The facilitating setting is designed to give parables and disguises, the interpretation of which
stability of background, with a minimizing of may require knowledge of the unconscious ...
interfering factors. Thus, the relaxed position on Suppose it is now suggested to a patient that
the couch, with the analyst out of sight speaking perhaps what he is really worrying about is not
only in the service of the analysis brings the these disguised ideas but some other trouble
patient's fantasy more directly into his awareness which they stand for, he may agree or disagree, it
and lessens the conventional 'short-circuits' or does not really matter. The object of the analyst's
gestural interactions whose ambiguity is exploited interventions is not to get the patient to accept
by us all to confirm or deny precast opinion or what he is told, but simply to get back into touch
expectation to suit ourselves. The frequency of with a buried part of himself.
sessions and the overall duration of treatment are The following quotation from Freud (1923)
both related to the analytic process which, once draws it all together:
started, seems to involve the setting free of Experience soon showed that the attitude which the
previously blocked developmental forces con- analytic physician could most advantageously adopt
cerned with attachment (in Bowlby's (1969) was to surrender himselfto his own unconscious mental
activity in a state of evenly suspended attention, to
sense) and the growth of individuality. Thus the avoid as far as possible reflection and the construction
interval between sessions needs to be less than the of conscious expectations, not to try to fix anything
required time for the development of compensa- that he heard particularly in his memory, and by these
tory defences and the duration long enough for means to catch the drift of the patient's unconscious
the process of satisfactory separation to be with his own unconscious. It was then found that,
except under conditions that were too unfavourable,
achieved. the patient's associations emerged like allusions, as it
'Resistance' can be seen in a concrete way as were, to one particular theme and that it was only
resistance to following the basic rule, so that necessary for the physician to go a step further in
interpretations are in the first instance (following order to guess the material which was concealed from
the analytic guide of 'working from the surface') the patient himself and to be able to communicate it to
him (p. 239).
resistance interpretation aimed at facilitating the
Freud's communicated 'guess' is a function of
analysand's communications.
the personality of the interviewer and of his
In human experience and consciousness, the
capacities and skills in a rather similar way to the
present is constantly being evaluated and struc-
musician who makes a creative interpretation of a
tured in terms of the past. The phenomenon of
musical score originated by someone else.
transference as it occurs in the psychoanalytic
setting is a specific and more or less concrete 4. The form ofpsychoanalytic interpretation
example of this. A mutative interpretation requires that the
Feelings and attitudes which begin to crystallize patient and the analyst at that moment already
around the analyst bear the hall-mark of earlier share a common field or model or that the analyst
and often archaic relationships with important can evoke the common field by the way his
figures in the analysand's formative history. . interpretation is formulated. Putting it another
Internalized authoritative attitudes, strictures and way, at that moment a common possibility of
compulsions especially are seen in their infantile perceptual grasp must be shared by the therapist
structuring of primitive instinctual urges. and patient: there must be an intersubjective (i.e,
Transference interpretations may be mutative if mutual) field of possible perception. This field of
they bring into effective awareness these aspects positively viewed ambiguity is the source for the
of the 'transference neurosis' by an immediacy of material used in the realization of the analyst's art
contrast with the reality of the situation. Analysis in linguistic expression. The analysand must not
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INTERPRET AnON
only understand what the analyst is talking about
but must be 'prepared' to give up the avoidance,
projection, or negation of the wishes involved at
the level of infantile fantasy, which, in his turn,
the analyst must have perceived correctly.
Through open mindedness, or evenly suspended
attention, the analyst's capacity to be receptive on
different levels of psychic life, and his artistic
intuition, are brought into contact, through
language, with the active unconscious functioning
of the analysand. Thus, psychoanalytic inter-
pretations are not usually explanations but are
therapeutic interventions arising in response to
unconscious patterns in the patient's material.
The transference nature of these patterns can be
made more obvious by the therapist's technique
and style, in his use of language.
Ricoeur (1969) contrasts two interpretations of
'interpretation'-the recollection of meaning and
the reduction of 'the illusions and lies of con-
sciousness', the positive exercise of the dimen-
sion of suspicion. In this paper I am pursuing the
notion of interpretation as the pursuit and
elaboration of the possibilities of form and I am
uncertain as to the location of this in the fabric of
Ricoeur's sophisticated and detailed analysis.
Perhaps his remark that symbols are not merely
vestiges but also 'dawn of meaning' is a suitable
place. Ricoeur (1969) contrasts sedimented
symbolism, the symbolism of dreams, fairy tales
and legends, with the everyday symbolic activity
at the cultural level, 'the clockwork of a given
society', and 'prospective symbols'-'creations of
meaning thattake up the traditional symbols with
their multiple significations and serve as the
vehicles of new meanings'. He goes on to
say-'this creation reflects the living substrate of
symbolism, a substrate that is not the result of
social sedimentation'.
Against the background of Ricoeur's thought
the view expressed in this paper is that in the
exercise of analysis as an art, interpretation rests
on the analyst's perception of the possibility of
the emergence of new form in the material
revealed by the analysand and that this is an act
of symbolic creation, i.e, the elaboration of
prospective symbols in Ricoeur's sense.
Ricoeur (1969) sees three forms of work
constituting a network-the dream work, the
work of becoming conscious and the work of
analysis. We can see this network also as being
291
the expression of the work of the primary process
at the level of the constitution of the lived world.
In other words, the secondary process ordering of
the lived world remains enriched or contaminated
by the primary process; the world of experienceis
affected creatively or destructively by the sub-
strate offantasy.
It is in this boundary area between the lived
world of organized experience and the under-
pinning of imaginative fantasy that the work of
interpretation develops as a mutual activity
between- analyst and analysand. To quote
Ricoeur-'Man behaves like a mechanism in
order to accomplish by deception the aims of
wish-fulfillment. In this way the psyche is itself a
technique practised on itself, a technique of
disguise and misunderstanding. The soul of this
technique is the pursuit of the lost archaic object
which is constantly displaced and replaced by
substitute fantastic, illusory, delirious, and
idealized objects ... [it is] the technique by which
wishes become unrecognizable ... a technique
which is immanent in the wish itself. Ricoeur
agrees with Lacan that the work of analysis is
entirely work within language, 'analysis does not
begin with observable conduct but rather with
meaninglessness that must be interpreted .. .'
The question of adaptation is bracketed in the
Husserlian sense, so that the reality that is dealt
with is 'the truth of a personal history in a
concrete situation .,.' and 'true meaning is
sought through the obscure labyrinths of the
fantasy .. .'
Language has a primary intersubjective inten-
tion and the work of analysis is carried out in
language as a mutual project of analyst and
analysand. Analysis thus 'reveals psychic func-
tioning itself as work'. Wishes are expressed in a
disguised and substitute way and recognition of
these wishes is the first part of the work of
interpretation. But '[this] art of interpretation is
... only the intellectual side of the handling of a
praxis .. .' Perhaps we could add that this praxis
is a function of the analyst's ability to make
constructive use of transference love, without
gratifying it, through the containment of
language.
5. Interpretation, beliefand reality
Polanyi (1949) in writing on the nature of
scientific convictions, has said that 'any account
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292 O. H. D. BLOMFIELD
of science which does not explicitly describe it as
something we believe in is essentially incomplete
and a false pretence'. For 'even at the most
elementary stages of cognition we are already
committing ourselves to an act of interpretation'.
Current beliefs as to the nature of things have a
decisive influence on the development of scientific
opinion. What is built up, in effect, is a scientific
culture, a 'web of belief in Quine's words, which
delineates the horizon within which opinions can
be formed, and also provides a 'general factor-
usually unstated-underlying every judgement.
Thus, as Polanyi points out, two sorts of
mutually exclusive expectations may arise in
relation to the same situation; one set arising from
acquaintance (consciously or unconsciously) with
the regularities of nature (e.g. the so-called Laws
of Nature); the other set arising from increasingly
detailed knowledge of the conditions bearing on
the situation.'
This contrast in types of knowledge was set out
explicitly by Windelband (1894) who introduced
the term 'idiographic' to refer to that approach to
knowledge which aims to ... 'provide a complete
and exhaustive description of a single ... process
. . . located within a unique domain of reality'.
This approach, these sciences, are concerned with
a single event or a coherent sequence of acts or
occurrences ... 'the purpose [being) ... to
reproduce and understand in its full facticity an
artifact of human life to which a unique onto-
logical status is ascribed'.
The idiographic approach to knowledge is
contrasted by Windelband with the 'nomothetic'
method, where the purpose is the discovery of
general laws which. make possible 'predictions on
future states and a purposeful human inter-
vention in the course of events'. In this approach,
'a single datum, unless it becomes a building stone
in a more general cognitive structure, remains
2 Polanyi gives as an example the statement that 'the
chance of throwing a dice is 1/36' but we could not say this,
not anything about the chances of such a throw, if we knew
exactly the mechanical conditions prevailing at such a throw
. .. the conception of chances would have vanished and
would remain inconceivable for a system known in such
detail. Thus a more detailed knowledge may completely
destroy a pattern which can be envisaged only from a point
of view excluding such knowledge.
3 According to Windelband, there are two kinds of cause
'the timeless necessity in which the constant nature of things
nothing more than an object of idle curiosity ...
A phenomenon qualifies as a fact only if science
can learn something from it ... the essential
objective of the single datum of knowledge [is) its
incorporation into a more extensive whole'.
However, he also remarks that 'Our sense of
values and all of our axiological sentiments are
grounded in the uniqueness and incomparability
of their object'. So that every human value
judgement, if it is to be dynamic and authentic, is
based upon the singular and unique. For this
reason, Windelband argues, the same subjects
can be (in fact, must be) the object of both a
nomothetic and an idiographic investigation for
the distinction between the invariable and the
unique is relative. Despite the basis of genuine
experience in the uniqueness of its object, general
propositions are also necessary at every stage in
the idiographic approach. 3
Thus Windelband continues, 'The law and the
event remain as the ultimate, incommensurable
entities of our world view ... [they determine a)
. . . boundary condition .. .' 'Therefore, in all the
data of historical and individual experience a
residuum of incomprehensible, brute fact remains,
an inexpressible and indefinable phenomenon.
Thus the ultimate and most profound nature of
personality resists analysis in terms of general
categories.' 'From the perspective of our con-
sciousness, this incomprehensible character of the
personality emerges as the sense of the indeter-
minacy of our nature-in other words, individual
freedom."
Psychoanalysis works to free' the individual
from the nomothetic constraints ('laws') imposed
upon himself by his own (infantile) fantasy or
imagination. In neurosis, the sense of indeter-
minacy, of individual freedom, of the space for
choice, has been sacrificed in a search for, or a
clinging to, the sense of predictability. Safety has
is expressed ... [and] ... the specific condition which
appears at a certain moment ...-' From this perspective
'every individual event assumes the form of a syllogism. The
major premise is a law of nature, a collection of nomological
necessities, for example. The minor premise is a temporally
given condition or the totality of a set of such conditions.
The conclusion of the syllogism is the individual event itself.
4 In these words, Windelband anticipates, in a very explicit
fashion, the position later developed by Sartre in relation to
human freedom.
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INTERPRETATION
been sought in the pursuit of regularity-to the
point of extinction of the sense of indeter-
minacy, i.e. of individual freedom.
But the risk emerges that the psychoanalyst,
through his interpretations, may offer to the
analysand only a substitute set of nomothetic
constraints which represent the limitations of
belief system(s). The analysand may take up a
derived structuring of the world, a second-hand
solution, to avoid the risks and labour of
constituting his own world through the exercise of
his progressive grasp of individual freedom. It is
necessary therefore to take a closer look at the
question of belief, especially as it underlies the
emergence and formation of the analyst's inter-
pretative activity.
There are varieties of belief and some of these
have been distinguished by Helm (1973). One
that did not seem to fall within his range of
discussion is belief associated with direct percep-
tual experience. This is well illustrated by a
number of Ames' (1955) experiments in percep-
tual ambiguity. An easy one to construct and
demonstrate involves a model of a window frame
tapered so as to give an in-built perspectival
effect, as if seen from 45 0 • This frame is mounted
so as to be rotated by a motor on its vertical axis
and is then viewed in the horizontal plane at
varying distances. At a critical distance, the
observer suddenly sees the frame not rotating, as
is obvious close up, but oscillating.
The integrative action of the visual perceptual
system rejects the possibility that the narrow end
of the frame could be close to the observer and
the movement is seen in such a way that the
narrow end is always distant. We thus have two
conflicting levels of belief, one derived from
knowledge of the construction of the apparatus
and close inspection of it, the other derived from
the directness of experience and the conviction
that 'the eye cannot lie'. The phenomenon of
perceptual closure appears to seek, at least in this
instance, the most economical organization of the
experiential field.
Merleau-Ponty's (1947) thesis of 'the primacy
of perception' sees this sort of perceptual ex-
perience, in its widest sense, as the matrix of the
structural organization of conscious and uncon-
scious thought. It is the pattern of how we 'make
up our minds'; of how we find 'objects' in the
outer world and 'concepts' in the inner world of
293
experience; and of how we then reify these
concepts. At the primitive level of infantile
fantasy it is the pattern on which the 'inner
objects' of object-relations theory are formed.
Merleau-Ponty says 'what is true of perception
is also true in the order of the intellect .. . in a
general way all our experience, all our know-
ledge, has the same fundamental structures, the
same synthesis of transition, the same kind of
horizons which we have found in perceptual
experience'. Merleau-Ponty's consideration of
perception reaches back from the concrete ex-
perience towards the experience of the act of
perception itself, where 'perception is understood
as a reference to a whole which can be grasped, in
principle, only through certain of its parts or
aspects'. The unity which is constituted by this
synthetic act comes from 'a totality open to a
horizon of an indefinite number of perspectival
views which blend with one another according to
a given style, which defines the object in
question'. The matter, the material, of perception
is 'pregnant with its form'.
The conflicting levels of belief, made obvious
by Ames' experiment can be summarized as
follows:
The first experience, in which the construction
of the apparatus, and the way in which it rotates
is viewed from close-up, has become an ex-
perience of memory and of generalization (a
memory of how the apparatus did function and a
generalized judgement of how mechanisms of this
sort do, or ought to, function) by the time the
observer has moved to the second position and is
watching the rotating window-frame from a
distance. In Windelband's (1894) terms, the
idiographic judgement made in the first instance
has become assimilated to a nomothetic judge-
ment which then carries force when the observer
is in the second position and the immediate
experience of a judgement of what ought to be
happening or of what is 'really' happening in
contrast to the 'reality' of the evidence of his
present perception. The fascination of the experi-
ment rests on the display of the dissonance
between these two 'realities'.
The psychoanalyst is often caught with an
especial poignancy at the boundary of these two
types of 'reality'. Although, in the nature of
things, his interpretations must be essentially
idiographic, that is founded in the unique ex-
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294 O. H. D. BLOMFIELD
perience and knowledge of the moment, he is
subjected to nomothetic pressures from several
directions. Firstly, from the analysand himself
who may, perhaps, in the transference be attempt-
ing to draw the analyst into believing he is a
particular sort of person. S Secondly, nomothetic
pressures arise from the analyst's background
and training, especially if he belongs to a
particular 'school' and his beliefs in that direction
are tinged with what Whitehead (1926) termed
'misplaced concreteness' or 'simple location'. The
poignancy of the analyst's position comes from
its inevitability for there is no complete escape-
one must operate within, and from, beliefs.
Polanyi (1949) has said 'The affirmation of a
belief can only be said to be sincere or insincere.
Sincere beliefs are those to which we are
committed ... Our commitments may turn out to
be rash. But it is in the nature of a belief that at
the moment of its being held it cannot be fully
justified, since it is in the nature of all com-
mitments that at the time we engage upon them
their outcome is still uncertain'. However, on a
different level, he comments 'where there is
purposeful striving there is belief in success'. In
the intentional fabric of emotional life,belief in the
possibility of success is inherent in the experience
of hope or optimism and this the analyst must
surely have.
6. Interpretation, self-evidence and the her-
meneutic circle
Ekstein comments, 'Correct interpretations do
not cure, and effective interpretations do not
necessarily describe the decisive determinants of
an illness'. For this reason Glover's use of the
terms 'exact' and 'inexact' in relation to inter-
pretation, Ekstein says, 'are as applicable as if we
were to characterise a novel as true or false'. In a
general philosophical setting, several decades
before, Whitehead (1938) made the comment-
'The simple-minded use of the notions of "right"
and "wrong" is one of the chief obstacles to the
progress of understanding'. Whitehead, in the
same work, emphasized that understanding is
never a completed static state of mind. It always
bears the character of a process of penetration,
incomplete and partial, on the edge of the
5 This may be an obvious danger in the training situation and may be amplified by identificatory processes in the analyst.
unknown. The understanding, on which psycho-
analytic interpretation rests, always involves the
notion of composition; to understand internally
why the components of our patient's thought
arise as they do; to understand externally their
effect on oneself and on his or her behaviour. But
the reference to process must also become
evident, the emerging structural changes in the
material of the sessions seen against the on-going
rhythm of the analysis and the ebb and flow of
transference and resistance. Understanding is not
a mere act of thought but a transposition and
re-experiencing of the world as another person
meets it in lived experience. One rediscovers
oneself in the other person.
Whitehead (1938) points out that for him,
'understanding' involves reaching a point of
self-evidence. He illustrates the question of
self-evidence by saying that for him it is directly
self-evident that the addition of I and 4 produces
the same multiplicity as the addition of 2 and 3.
This dynamic faculty of insight or penetration
will be different for different people in different
fields or at different times. Whitehead adds that
the young Indian mathematical genius Ramanu-
jan had the same immediate insight into relation-
ships of all the integers up to 100 as he, himself,
had for those up to 5!
This achievement of insight, or penetration, is
only complete if accompanied by a sense of
growth, linking it with dimly sensed unexplored
relationships with things beyond.
But the insight must also be rounded off with a
sense of completion, or closure. This inter-
weaving of the sense of growth and the sense of
closure, the interplay of change and performance,
brings one in touch with the inexplorable fact of
process-'we are in the present; the present is
always shifting; it is derived from the past; it is
shaping the future; it is passing into the future'. In
short, in understanding, our prehensive grasp of
things closes a facet of existence to a point where
we have the experience of self-evidence. But this
hopeful touchstone of certainty will be misleading
to the extent that we lose touch with the sense of
growth, the sense of process.
The concept of the 'hermeneutical circle' of
understanding seems to have originated in the late
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INTERPRET A nON
eighteenth century (with Ast) and to have been
developed by a number of thinkers through the
next century and a half (Schleiermacher, Dilthey,
Jaspers). Recently it has again been discussed as
a central principle in the formation of inter-
pretations (e.g, by Ricoeur, Palmer). To
paraphrase Palmer (1969), we understand
things by comparing them to other things we
already know. For example, a whole sentence is a
unity made up of familiar words, but we
understand the meaning of each individual word
in a more precise way by seeing it in reference to
the whole of the sentence; but in a reciprocal way,
the meaning of the sentence as a whole is
dependent on the meaning of the individual
words. One concept derives its meaning from a
context, or horizon, within which it stands but the
horizon itself is made up of the very elements to
which it gives meaning. The 'hermeneutical circle'
is this dialectical interaction between the whole
and the part in which each imparts, reinforces or
clarifies the meaning of the other. At the
intersubjective level, it suggests the background of
growth in the mutuality of understanding-a
community of meanings shared by the speaker
and the hearer, against which a single inter-
pretation takes shape and which it enriches. And,
as Palmer (1969) says 'sometimes a single
sentence will illuminate and draw all that was
previously without coherence into a single
meaningful whole'.
Jaspers (1923) summarizes it as follows, 'we
achieve understanding within a circular move-
ment from particular facts to the whole that
includes them and back again from the whole
thus reached to the particular significant facts.
The circle continually expands itself and tests and
changes itself meaningfully in all its parts. A final
"terra firma" is never reached. There is only the
whole as it is attained at any time, which bears
itself along in the mutual opposition of its parts'.
Thus for an interpretation to be mutative it must
be correctly placed within the hermeneutic circle
of the moment, defining the living intentional
component of transference. The experienced
transference is the living mutuality of being,
embracing both analysand and analyst. This is
the background, or whole, of the hermeneutical
circle against which the interpretation emerges as
the part which takes meaning from the whole, and
in tum enriches it.
295
Hartmann's (1927) dismissal of 'self-evidence'
as a basis for understanding seems to rest on a
rejection of the relativism implicit in the concept
of the 'hermeneutic circle' and the pursuit of a
positivistic illusion of a final 'reality'; of the 'real
connexions' between things. Hartmann uses as an
example the case of a man known superficially
whose health and well-being makes his attitude of
abhorring and fighting anything sickly, weak or
half-hearted understandable. On getting to know
the man better we find that he is basically not
only in poor health but psychologically very
insecure. Again we understand the connexion
between the man's weakness and insecurity and
his avoidance of these things in others and 'the
insight into this connexion is accompanied by an
experience of self-evidence'. 'We must then say:
the experience of self-evidence has deceived us;
or: self-evidence opposes self-evidence and the
decision as to truth or falsity obviously cannot be
derived from self-evidence. The understandable
connection has, in a concrete case, proved to be
pseudo-connection.' Later Hartmann says 'it is
precisely the experience of "self-evidence" which
prevents us from pushing ahead to the real
connexions'. But in the example he uses the
judgements made in the two situations are
contained within the horizons of knowledge at
that moment and cannot fairly be set one against
the other.
Judgements made in a constricted situation are
always likely to be seen as inadequate when the
general side of the hermeneutic equation is
expanded or altered. From the viewpoint of the
hermeneutic circle there is no finality of know-
ledge-the 'real' is always subject to some
varieties of 'experience' and hence of 'inter-
pretation'.
7. Interpretation and language
We have seen the basic nature of the act and
function of interpretation and its interconnexion
with the notions of understanding, belief, reality
and judgement. Each of these finds practical
expression through language. But they have their
footing in a mute world of consciousness before
expression. It is a world in which ambiguity is
resolved, more or less creatively, by a faculty
aspects of which are variously described as
apprehension and apperception. It is the world of
the artist and of the psychoanalyst faced with the
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296 O. H. D. BLOMFIELD
life that his patient shares inter-subjectively with
him. The analyst's personal apprehensive/apper-
ceptive function underlies the understanding
which is formulated as an interpretation through
the language he has at his disposal. But language
has a life of its own, a life which arises from
its cultural history and philosophical pre-
suppositions, outside the individual. As Langan
(1966) puts it-'When I wish to think a thought,
I must express it either in internal discourse or by
actually writing or speaking. To this end I draw
on a linguistic treasury which presents itself as
flexible possibilities, as intentions, as motivations.
It is a stock of various ways of taking a stance, of
moving about in a world of signification which
functions as so many invitations to structure my
intentional field in one way or another. Some of
these possibilities I must espouse in order to
incarnate,-to give being to,-my meaning'.
Thus, limiting the analyst's intention to estab-
lish and to use a meta-position relative to the
transference neurosis, in the analytic situation
there are not only the resistance due to the
coherence of the neurosis, coupled with the
reflected defensiveness of the functional (con-
flict-free) ego and the analyst's difficulties with
countertransference and his own residual trans-
ference problems, but also the restrictions, biases
and presuppositions of language.
Benson (1942) asked:
o words, 0 words, and shall you rule
The world? What is it but the tongue
That doth proclaim a man a fool,
So that his best songsgo unsung,
So that hisdreams are sent to school,
And alldieyoung.
There pass the travelling dreams, and these,
My souladores-my words condemn-
Oh, I would fall uponmy knees
To kiss theirgolden garments' hem,
Yetwords do liein wait to seize
And murder them.
A collusive pressure, sustaining common
illusions, arises from the philosophical pre-
suppositions and the 'deep structures' of the lan-
guage shared by the analysand and the analyst.
Ambrose (1971» quotes Wittgenstein (1958) as
saying-'Our ordinary language, which of all
possible notations is the one which pervades all
our life, holds our mind rigidly in one position, as
it were, and in this position sometimes it feels
cramped, having a desire for other positions as
well. Thus we sometimes wish for a notation
which stresses a difference more strongly, makes
it more obvious, than ordinary language does, or
one which in a particular case uses more closely
similar forms of expression than our ordinary
language. Our mental cramp is loosened when we
are shown the notations which fulfill these needs'.
The analyst is faced therefore with the task of
finding the symbolic notation that will loosen his
own 'mental cramp' as well as the analysand's.
This 'symbolic notation' sets the form of the
interpretation that will help to make clear the
cramping illusion that is being created and
sustained.
In the search for the effective symbolic
notation, the mutative interpretation, the analyst
is involved in a dialogue with his own sources of
linguistic expression, as well as in a dialogue with
his patient.
The dialogues are conducted synchronously in
two languages-the language of the trans-
ference expressed unconsciously by the patient
and the explicit language of the analyst. The
language of the transference is, predominantly,
that of primary process in the context of infantile
experience; the language of the analyst in the
working alliance is, predominantly, that of secon-
dary process in the contextual setting of cultural
belief and linguistic presupposition. Thus, the
interpretation must be meaningful in a dual way.
It must be meaningful in the neurotic system and
meaningful in the reality system, following what
Hartmann (1951) described as 'the principle of
multiple appeal'.
The analyst, more than the patient, needs
freedom in linguistic reach and grasp, but
paradoxically must suffer more disciplined restric-
tion. The patient can have recourse to symptom,
gesture and action in expression which the analyst
in his choice of setting, has denied himself-at
least in principle.
How is it possible that the analyst can escape
from the 'mental cramps' that are endemic in
language?
Ricoeur (1973), writing on creativity, shows
how language achieves an infinite possibility of
expression through the use of finite means. Words
are polysemic in their ability to mean more than
one thing. Specific meaning emerges through the
structuring of sentences and through innovative
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INTERPRET AnON
metaphor at the level of the sentence which 'has
to be considered as the focus of all creativity in
language'. Sentences uncover possibilities in the
richness of the ambiguity of discourse.
'The simplest message conveyed by the means
of natural language has to be interpreted because
all the words are polysemic and take their actual
meaning from the connection with a given context
and a given audience against the background of a
given situation. Interpretation in this broad sense
is a process by which we use all the available
contextual determinants to grasp the actual
meaning of a given message in a given situation.'
Ricoeur (1973) points out that considerations
of semantic pertinence require that, when we are
speaking, only a part of the semantic field of a
word is used. The remainder is being constantly
excluded or rather repressed by the process of
mutual selection exerted by the formation of the
sentence as a whole and by the context of
discourse on its parts. The emergence of a topic
helps to eliminate the unwanted meaning under
the control of the whole speech situation. Finally
the exchanges of dialogue or conversation allow
the speaker to verify that the message has been
correctly decoded by the hearer. The inter-
pretation of the hearer is shaped by the specific
clues or guidelines provided by the utterances of
the speaker. However this strategy in the screen-
ing of polysemy leaves a residual possibility or
threat of misunderstanding in communicative
ambiguity. Ricoeur draws the conclusion that the
failure of ordinary language to meet the chal-
lenge of misunderstanding explains the develop-
ment of the different strategies of scientific
languages which are defined, from this limited
view, by the defensive measures taken against
ambiguity. Nevertheless, the possibilities of in-
definite invention as the condition for creativity,
are based on the variability and displacibility of
meanings and their sensibility to context. Return-
ing to the notion of the hermeneutic circle, one
could say that 'meaning' as 'part' (figure) is
shaped from the 'whole' (ground) of the con-
textual surround of ambiguity.
Ricoeur (1973) continues-'The theme of
ordinary language is communication, and its field
of application is reality as it is differently
experienced by the individual members of the
speech community'. (In our case, the analyst and
analysand.) 'Strictly speaking, however, com-
297
munication is not the aim of a scientific language
... All readers ... [of a scientific paper] ... are in
a sense one and the same mind and the purpose of
discourse is not to build a bridge between two
spheres of experience, but to insure the identity of
meaning from the beginning to the end of an
argument. This is why there are no contextual
variations of meaning in a langue bien faite. The
meaning is contextually neutral, or, if you prefer,
insensible to the context because the main
purpose of the language is that the meaning
remain the same all through the arguments. This
continual sameness of the meaning is secured by
the one to one relation between name and sense
and by the indifference to the context. Thus I
should say that the aim of a scientific language is
not communication but argumentation. It follows
that there is something irreducible in ordinary
language.'
Perhaps the 'mental cramps' in language, to
which Wittgenstein (1958) referred, may be
linked with, not so much a lack of precision, but
misplaced over-precision, and the loosening of the
cramp may require the re-introduction of more
ambiguity.
The presence of ambiguity, and the associated
possibility of creative play with meaning may be
linked with Winnicott's (1971) ideas on play in
relation to potential space and creativity. In this
regard, Winnicott defined psychoanalysis 'as a
highly specialized form of playing in the service of
communication with oneself and others'.
The question arises as to the nature and
interaction between-
(a) the language of 'free association'
(b) the language of interpretation
(c) the language of theory,
in psychoanalysis.
'Free association', expressing in words 'what
freely irrupts' contains manifest and latent levels
of creative interplay between the primary and
secondary processes. This creative interplay is
also across the boundary set in another dimension
(for the boundary conscious/unconscious in no
way corresponds with that implied between the
processes) by repression and more primitively by
foreclosure. The creative potential of 'free
association' needs the interpretive action of the
analyst (mobilized through his trained capacity
of awareness-his 'third ear') to bring it to
actuality.
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298 O. H. D. BLOMFIELD
The language of 'free association' and the
.language of interpretation have mirror as well as
complementary relationships to each other. The
mirroring is made possible by the method of
phenomenological reduction. Both analyst and
patient suspend, as far as possible, the filtering
effect of judgements like those of relevance,
rationality and social acceptability enabling the
analyst to resonate with his own unconscious to
the patient's unconscious.
The interaction is complementary in that the
patient's language, in its expression of the
infantile neurosis, is biased towards primary
process, while the analyst's language overtly leans
towards secondary process. The analyst's inter-
pretations enrich the interplay of these processes
in the analysand.
Creativity demands, as Ricoeur (1973) points
out, the use of ordinary language common to
both patient and analyst. The use of technical or
specialized language, as every analyst knows, is
an anathema.
The language of psychoanalytic theory pre-
sents a simpler problem in Ricoeur's analysis. To
retain contact with the potential for creative
development in theory ordinary language is
mandatory; but to explore in detail the impli-
cations of special areas that have been opened up,
specialized (scientific) language may become
necessary. To retain flexibility, it must be possible
to use either language as a meta-language to
examine the other; the ordinary language, the
scientific;the scientific, the ordinary.
8. Example
It is a Friday session. The patient arrives on
time, but the analyst is called to the telephone so
that there is a couple of minutes' delay. The
patient's associations, on lying on the couch,
include the following:
1. being kept waiting;
2. a thought that perhaps the session had been
cancelled, or that he had come at the wrong
time;
3. a sudden conviction that there was some-
thing wrong with the bell; did it in fact ring?
4. perhaps it was his fault, perhaps he didn't
ring the bell; he was always forgetting
things.
Pause ...
5. some close friends he spent a lot of time
with were away on a trip and he was
missing them;
6. they hadn't told him exactly where they
were going, they had mentioned Asia and he
was oppressed by the thought of the number
of people there and
7. the depressed classes, and in India, the
Untouchables, their hopeless isolation
socially and the terrible famine.
The analyst's interpretations included
references to the following:
(a) It was Friday and there would be an
interruption to the rhythm of the sessions;
(b) the patient's feelings of being starved or
deprived by the analyst;
(c) the conviction that he can't get through to
the analyst and can't get a response from
him;
(d) the way the patient takes back into himself
the feeling of badness so that he ends up
feeling that he is not only starved but is an
'untouchable', and
(e) this turning of his angry punitive feelings
back against himself is to preserve and
protect the analyst.
This piece of clinical material and the inter-
pretation based on it will serve to illustrate some
of the points made in the paper.
The patient recounts a vivid immediate idio-
graphic experience which he interprets in terms of
the nomothetic structure of his infantile neurosis,
the mental cramping of which allows only the
finding of a constricted 'reality'. The analyst's
interpretation has an immediate footing in his
idiographic experience of the patient's complaints
including his countertransference. This experience
is assimilated to nomothetic structures derived
from his previous knowledge of the patient, his
own personal analysis and training and his
theoretical orientation.
The 'hermeneutic circle' into which the inter-
pretation is fitted can be seen as composed of-
whole = the structure and rhythm of the sessions
-their meaning in terms of containment
and nurturance, and
part = the immediate symbolic significance of
'being kept waiting'.
The two levelsof underatanding-
(i) transference-the -resonance of 'being
kept waiting' with the infantile feeding
situation-
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INTERPRET ATION 299

- his immediate feeling that there was psychoanalytic interpretation frees the individual
something wrong with his control of from outmoded nomothetic constraints imposed
analyst/mother, and by his infantile neurosis, the interpretation being
- his directing of the feeling of 'badness' derived from an immediate idiographic approach
towards himself. made possible by a type of phenomenological
(ii) countertransference the transitory reduction (Husserlian epoche),
annoyance in the analyst, engendered by The unreliability of self-evidence can be offset
the demand to be nurtured, the unfairness by correctly placing it in the hermeneutic circle of
of the complaint, and the indirect method the moment, so that there is an emphasis on the
of expression is offset by empathy streng- background from which the interpretation
thened by his own analysis and training. emerges as part taking meaning from the whole
The formulation of the interpretation in terms and in turn enriching it.
of 'multiple appeal'- The implicit language of the transference and
(i) the reference both to the factual setting and the explicit language of the analyst are founded in
to the infantile neurosis, and the primary and secondary processes and in this
(ii) the reference to the mechanism of defence, regard psychoanalytic interpretation takes on
what is defended against and what is some of the attributes of translation. But beyond
preserved. this the analyst has forced on him a dialogue with
The bridging function of the interpretation his own linguistic resources and its restrictions,
which is aimed to link in a meaningful way the biases and presuppositions. Ricoeur's (1973)
working alliance of the analysis and the strong work on the foundations of creativity in language
transference feelings. throws light on the interplay between ordinary
and specialized languages. His defence of poly-
SUMMARY
semy and of a positive view towards ambiguity
has a parallel in Winnicott's (1971) ideas on
Interpretation is a basic activity founded in the potential space and the role of creative play.
phenomenology of perception and the structures
of behaviour (Merleau-Ponty, 1942, 1945). The
organization of experience in its interpretation TRANSLATIONS OF SUMMARY
leads out into the contrasting psychical modes of
understanding and explanation. The phenom- L'interpretation est une activite fondamentale basee dans
la phenomenologie de la perception et dans la structure du
enon of transference, consciously exploited as a comportement (Merleau-Ponty, 1942, 1945). L'organisation
vehicle in psychoanalysis, is something to be both de l'experience dans son interpretation s'ecarte dans les
understood and explained, while its interpretation modes contrastes psychiques de la comprehension et de
I'expliquation. Le phenomene de la transference, consciem-
is the distinguishing mark of psychoanalytic ment exploite comme un vehicule dans la psychanalyse, doit
therapy. etre compris aussi bien qu'explique, alors que son inter-
As Whitehead (1927), Langer (1942) and pretation est Ie signe distinctif de la therapie psych-
analytique.
others have observed, a relatively small number Comme Whitehead (1927), Langer (1942) et d'autres
of primitive experiences open out into an I'ont observe, relativement peu d'experiences primitives
increasingly large number of symbolic repre- revelent un grand nombre de representations de type
symbolique. Cette pente reductive/expansive dans Ie
sentations. This reductive/expansive gradient in domaine du symbolisme facilite l'interpretation,
symbolism makes interpretation possible. L'interpretation psychanalytique peut etre vue comme la
The psychoanalytic interpretation can be seen creation ou l'elabcration de symbols prospetifs dans Ie sens
de Ricoeur (1974) est ceci est done un art qui traite avec
as the creation or elaboration of prospective I'emergence d'une forme nouvelle qui est implicite dans la
symbols in Ricoeur's (1974) sense and is thus an fonction symbolique nouvelle. Neanmoins, l'interpretation
art which deals with the emergence of new form doit surgir d'une conviction deja presente et d'une vision
particuliere de la realite derivee de sources idiographiques et
in the structures implicit in the new symbolic nomothetiques (comme dans Windelband 1894). L'inter-
function. But interpretation must start from pretation psychanalytique reussie libere I'individu de
pre-existing belief and a particular view of 'reality' restraintes nomothetiques demodees imposees par sa nevrose
enfantile, l'interpretation etant derivee d'un abord immediat
derived from idiographic and nomothetic sources idiographique rendu possible par un certain type de
(in Windelband's (1894) terms). Successful reduction phenornenologique(Husserlian epoche),
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300 O. H. D. BLOMFIELD
L'inexactitude de la propre-evidence peut etre compensee
en la placant correctement dans Ie cercle hermeneutique du
moment donne, de facon a ce qu'il y ait un appuy dans
l'arriere plan depuis lequel l'interpretation emerge comme
une partie derivant une signification du tout est l'en-
richissant en ce faisant.
Le langage implicite de la transference et Ie langage
implicite de I'analyste sont fondes dans les processus
primaires et secondaires et a cet egard l'interpretation
psychanalytique revetit certaines qualites de la traduction.
Mais au-dela, I'analyste a force sur lui-meme un dialogue
avec ses propres resources linguistiques, leurs restrictions,
leurs parti-pris et prejuges. L'oeuvre de Ricoeur (1973) sur
les bases de la creativite dans Ie langage nous eclaire en ce
qui concerne la reaction entre les langages ordinaires et
specialises. Sa defense pour la polysemie et pour un point de
vue positif vers I'ambiguite se rapproche aux idees de
Winnicott (1971) en ce qui concerne I'espace potentiel et Ie
role de la phase creative.
Die Deutung ist eine fundamentale Tiitigkeit, die in der
Phiinomenologie der Wahrnehmung und der Verhaltens-
strukturen verwurzelt ist (Merleau-Ponty 1942, 1945). In
seiner Deutung fiihrt die Organisation des Erlebens hinaus in
die gegensiitzlichen psychischen Modalitiiten des Verstehens
und des Erkliirens. Das Phiinomen der Ubertragung, das von
der Psychoanalyse bewusst als Hilfsmittel ausgebeutet wird,
ist etwas, das sowohl verstanden als auch erkliirt werden
muss, wiihrend ihre Deutung das Unterscheidungsmerkmal
psychoanalytischer Therapie ist.
Wie Whitehead (1927), Langer (1942) und andere
bemerkt haben, so weitet sich eine relativ kleine Anzahl
primitiver Erlebnisse in eine standig grosser werdende Zahl
symbolischer Vorstellungen. Diese reduktive/expansive
Steigung im Symbolismus ermoglicht die Deutung.
Die psychoanalytische Deutung kann als die Schopfung
oder Ausarbeitung kiinftiger Symbole in Ricoeurs (1974)
Sinn aufgefasst werden und ist deshalb eine Kunst, die sich
mit dem Hervortreten neuer Form in den Strukturen befasst,
die in der neuen symbolischen Struktur enthalten sind. Aber
die Deutung muss von einem bereits bestehenden Glauben
ausgehen und von einer bestimmten Ansicht der 'Realitiit',
die sich von idiographischen und nomothetischen Wurzeln
ableitet (in Windelbands (1894) Sinn). Erfolgreiche psycho-
analytische Deutung befreit den betrefTenden Menschen von
veralteten nomothetischen Einschriinkungen, die ihm von
seiner infantilen Neurose auferlegt sind, wobei sich die
Deutung von einer unmittelbaren idiographischen An-
naherung ableitet, die durch einen Typus von phano-
menologischer Reduktion (ein Husserlianisches epoche)
errnoglicht wird. Die Unzuverliissigkeit der Selbstaussage
kann dadurch ausgeglichen werden, indem sie in korrekter
Weise in den hermeneutischen Kreis des Momentes gesetzt
wird, so dass sich eine Hervorhebung des Hintergrundes
einstellt, aus dem die Deutung als Teil hervorgeht und
Bedeutung aus dem Ganzen erhiilt und ihn seinerseits
bereichert.
Die implizite Sprache der Ubertragung und die explizite
Sprache des Analytikers begriinden sich in den Primar- und
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La interpretacion es una actividad basica fundada en la
fenomenologia de la percepcion y las estructuras de la
conducta (Merleau-Ponty 1942, 1945). La organizacion de
la experiencia en su interpretacion conduce a contrastar
modos psiquicos de comprension y explicacion, EI fenomeno
de la transferencia, explotado conscientemente como
vehiculo en el psicoanalisis, es algo que hay que entender y
explicar a la vez, mientras que su interpretacion es la marca
distintiva de la terapia psicoanalitica.
Segun han observado Whitehead (1927), Langer (1942), y
otros, un nurnero relativamente pequefio de experiencias
primitivas se convierte en un numero cada vez mayor de
representaciones simbolicas, Este indice reductivo y expan-
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La interpretacion psicoanalitica se puede ver como
creacion 0 elaboracion de simbolos probables en el sentido
de Ricoeur (1974), y en ese sentido es un arte que trata de la
emergencia de una nueva forma en las estructuras implicitas
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particular de la realidad derivada de fuentes ideograficas y
nomoteticas (segun la terminologia de Windelband, 1894).
La buena interpretacion psicoanalitica Iibera al individuo de
constricciones nomoteticas anticuadas impuestas por la
neurosis infantil; la interpretacion se deriva de un enfoque
ideograflco immediato posibilitado por une especie de
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hermeneutico del momento, de modo que el enfasis racae en
la historia de fondo de la que la interpretacion emerge como
parte, recibiendo su sentido del todo a la vez que 10
enriquece.
EI lenguaje implicito de la transferencia y el lenguaje
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secundarios, y en este aspecto la interpretacion psico-
analitica adquiere algunos de los atributos de la traduccion.
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dialogo con sus recursos lingiiisticos y con sus limitaciones,
sus tendencias y sus presupuestos de base. EI trabajo de
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lenguaje, arroja luz sobre la interaccion que se da entre
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