Changes

<i>Over-interpretation</i> is the possibility, envisaged by [[Freud ]] (1900a), that the [[psychoanalyst ]] may [[encounter ]] an increase in [[material ]] and produce a new interpretation very close to the [[patient]]'s [[unconscious ]] [[fantasy]]. Over-interpretation can result from the patient's freely associating on the basis of his [[dream]], thereby increasing the material [[subject ]] to interpretation. More generally, over-interpretation involves giving an interpretation that is not limited to clarification but comes close to the unconscious [[fantasies ]] that [[structure ]] the material. Fantasies not only occur in [[dreams]], to be extracted by interpretation; they predetermine how dreams are [[interpreted]]. Over-interpretation allows these fantasies to be dynamically revived.In chapter 7 of <i>The [[Interpretation of Dreams]]</i> (1900a), where <i>over-interpretation</i> appeared for the first [[time]], Freud employed it as a way of warning the novice [[analyst ]] that his [[work ]] is not finished when he arrived at what he believes to be a [[complete ]] and coherent interpretation of the dream: "For the same dream may perhaps have [[another ]] interpretation as well, an 'over-interpretation,' which has escaped him. It is, indeed, not easy to [[form ]] any conception of the abundance of the unconscious trains of [[thought]], all striving to find expression, which are [[active ]] in our minds. Nor is it easy to credit the skill shown by the [[dream-work ]] in always hitting upon forms of expression that can bear several meanings—like the little tailor in the fairy story who hits seven flies at a blow" (p. 523).The possibility of over-interpretation is thus directly linked to the overdetermination of unconscious [[formations ]] and the interdependence of [[mental ]] [[contents]], which this overdetermination presupposes. [[Unconscious formations ]] do, of course, result from different causes (such as [[symptoms ]] and fantasies), but in each [[case ]] they are connected to multiple unconscious elements. In this [[sense]], over-interpretation is the repeated attempt to stay as close as possible to [[sexual ]] and [[infantile ]] contents. Yet over-interpretation also points directly toward what Freud designated as the main stumbling-block for interpretive work on dreams, the umbilical [[navel ]] of the dream: "There is often a passage in even the most thoroughly interpreted dream which has to be [[left ]] obscure; this is because we become aware during the work of interpretation that at this point there is a tangle of dream-[[thoughts ]] which cannot be unravelled and which moreover adds [[nothing ]] to our [[knowledge ]] of the [[content ]] of the dream. This is the [[dream's navel]], the spot where it reaches down into the unknown" (1900a, p. 525).The [[notion ]] of over-interpretation thus allowed Freud to show that there is no such [[thing ]] as a [[true ]] or [[false ]] interpretation that could be related to a realist conception of [[meaning]]. On this subject Pierre-Henri Castel has remarked, "It is thus never one single meaning that is really [[present ]] to the [[mind]], and can be given a true or false interpretation: rather, it is always a partially realized set of [[meanings ]] that can be given a true or false interpretation only if this interpretation takes into account their potential interrelations" (1998).More generally, the notion of over-interpretation, by making an open, [[dynamic ]] conception of interpretation possible, raises the question of origins. Fantasies of origin create and determine [[the formations of the unconscious ]] in general and of the dream in [[particular]].

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1900a). The [[interpretation of dreams]]. SE, 4: 1-338; 5: 339-625.