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The role of the [[analyst]] in the [[treatment]] is twofold.
First and foremost, he must listen to the [[analysand]], but he must also intervene by speaking to the [[analysand]].
Although the [[analyst]]'s [[speech]] is characterized by many different kinds of [[speech|speech act]] (asking questions, giving instructions, etc.), it is the offering of [[interpretation]]s which plays the most crucial and distinctive role in the [[treatment]].
Broadly speaking, the [[analyst]] can be said to offer an [[interpretation]] when he says something that subverts the [[analysand]]'s [[conscious]] 'everyday' way of looking at something.
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[[Freud]] first began offering [[interpretation]]s to his [[patient]]s in order to help them remember an idea that had been [[repressed]] from [[memory]].
These [[interpretation]]s were educated guesses about what the [[patient]]s had omitted from their account of the events which led up to the [[formation]] of their [[symptom]]s.
For example, in one of the earliest [[interpretation]]s, [[Freud]] told one [[patient]] that she had not revealed all her motives for the intense affection she showed towards her employer's children, and went on to say; "I believe that really you are in love with your employer, the Director, though perhaps without being aware of it yourself."<ref>{{F}} 1895d. SE II. p.117</ref>
The purpose of the [[interpretation]] was to help the [[patient]] become [[conscious]] of [[unconscious]] thoughts.
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The model of [[interpretation]] was set down by [[Freud]] in ''[[The Interpretation of Dreams]]''.<ref>{{F}} 1900a.</ref>
Though only concerned explicitly with [[dreams]], [[Freud]]'s comments on [[interpretation]] in this work apply equally to all the other [[formation]]s of the [[unconscious]] ([[parapraxes]], [[jokes]], [[symptoms]], etc.).
In the second chapter of this work the psychoanalytic method of [[interpretation]] is distinguished from the "decoding" method of [[interpretation]] by the use of the method of [[free association]]: a psychoanalytic [[interpretation]] does not consist in attributing a meaning to a [[dream]] by referring to a pre-existing system of equivalences but by referring to the associations of the dreamer himself.
It ollows that the same image will mean very different things if dreamed by different people.
Even when [[Freud]] later came to recognize the [[existence]] of 'symbolism' in [[dreams]] (i.e. the fact that there are some iamges which have fixed universal meanings in addition to their unique meaning for the individual dreamer), he always maintained thaat [[interpretation]] should focus primarily on the particular meaning and warned against "overestimating the importance of symbols in dream interpretation."<ref>Freud. 1900a. SE V. p.359-60.</ref>
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Early on in the history of the psychoanalytic movement, [[interpretation]] rapidly came to be the most important tool of the [[analyst]], his primary means for achieving therapeutic effects in the [[patient]].
Since [[symptom]]s were held to be the expression of a [[repressed]] idea, the [[interpretation]] was seen to cure the [[symptom]] by helping the [[patient]] become [[conscious]] of the idea.
However, after the initial period in which the offering of [[interpretation]]s seemed to achieve remarkable effects, in the decade 1910-20 [[analyst]]s began to notice that their [[interpretations were becoming less effective.
In particular, the [[symptom] would persist even after the [[analyst]] had offered exhaustive [[interpretations]] of it.
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In order to explain this, [[analyst]]s turned to the concept of [[resistance]], arguing that it is not sufficient simply to offer an [[interpretation]] of the [[unconscious]] [[meaning]] of the [[symptom]] but that it is also necessary to get rid of the [[patient]]'s [[resistance]] to becoming fully [[conscious]] of this [[meaning]].
[[Lacan]], however, proposes a different explanation.
He argues that the decreasing efficacy of [[interpretation]]s after 1920 was due to a "closure" of the [[unconscious]] which the [[analyst]]s themselves had provoked.<ref>{{S2}} p.10-11; {{S8}} p.390</ref>
Among other things, [[Lacan]] blames the increasing tendency of the first generation of [[analyst]]s to base their [[interpretation]]s more on symbolism (despite [Freud]]'s warnings to the contrary), thereby returning to the pre-psychoanalytic "decoding" method of [[interpretation]].
Not only did this reduce [[interpretation]]s to set formulas, but the [[patient]]s soon came to be able to predict exactly what the [[analyst]] would say about any particular [[symptom]] or association they produced (which, as [[Lacan]] wryly comments "is surely the most annoying trick which can be played on a fortune-teller."<ref>{{Ec}} p.462</ref>)
[[Interpretation]]s thus lacked both relevance and shock-value.
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Other [[analyst]]s before [[Lacan]] had recognized the problems caused by the fact that [[patient]]s were increasingly knowledgable of [[psychoanalytic theory]].
However, the solution which they proposed for this problem was that "too much knowledge on the part of the patient should be replaced by more knowledge on the part of the analyst."<ref>Ferenczi and Rank, 1925: 61</ref>
In other words, they urged the [[analyst]] to elaborate even more complex theories in order to stay one step ahead of the [[patient]].
[[Lacan]], however, proposes a different solution.
What is needed, he argues, is not [[interpretations]] of every-increasing complexity, but a different way of approaching [[interpretation]] altogether.
Hence [[Lacan]] calls for a "renewed technique of interpretation,"<ref>{{E}} p.82.</ref> one that challenges the basic assumptions underlying the classical psychoanalytic model of [[interpretation]].
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Classical [[interpretation]]s generally took the form of attributing to a [[dream]], a [[symptom]], a [[parapraxis]], or an association, a [[meaning]] not given to it by the [[patient]].
For example the [[interpretation]] may be of the form "What you really mean by this symptom is that you desire ''x''."
The fundamental assumption was that the [[interpretation unmasks a hidden meaning, the truth of which could be confirmed by the [[patient]] producing more associations.
It is this assumption that [[Lacan]] challenges, aruging that analytic [[interpretation]]s should no longer aim at discovering a hidden meaning, but rather at disrupting meaning.
<blockquote>"Interpretation is directed not so much at 'making sense' as towards reducing the signifiers to their 'non-sense' in order thereby to find the determinants of all the subject's conduct."<ref>{{S11}} p.212</ref></blockquote>
[[Interpretation]] thus inverts the relationship between [[signifier]] and [[signified]]: instead of the normal production of [[meaning]] ([[signifier]] produces [[signified]]), [[interpretation]] works at the level of ''s'' to generate S: [[interpretation]] causes "irreducible signifiers" to arise, which are "non-sensical."<ref>{{S11}} p.250</ref>
Hence it is not a question, for [[Lacan]], of fitting the [[analysand]]'s [[discourse]] into a preconceived interpretive matrix or theory (as in the "decoding" method), but of disrupting all such theories.
Far from offering the [[analysand]] a new message, the [[interpretation]] should serve merely to enable the [[analysand]] to hear the message he is [[unconsciously]] addressing to himself.
The [[analysand]]'s [[speech]] always has other meanings apart from that which he [[consicously]] intends to convey.
The [[analyst]] plays on the ambiguity of the [[analysand]]'s [[speech]], bringing out its multiple meanings.
Often the most effective way for the [[interpretation]] to achieve this is for it too to be ambiguous.
By interpreting in this way, the [[analyst]] sends the [[analysand]]'s message back to the [[analysand]] in its true, inverted form.
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An [[interpretation]] is therefore not offered to gain the [[analysand]]'s assent, but is simply a tactical device aimed at enabling the [[analysand]] to continue speaking when the flow of associations has become locked.
The value of an [[interpretation]] does not lie in its correspondence with [[reality]], but simply in its power to produce certain effects; an [[interpretation]] may therefore be inexact, in the sense of not corresponding to "the facts," but nevertheless true, in the sense of having powerful symbolic effects.<ref>{{E}} p.237</ref>
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[[Lacan]] argues that in order to [[interpret]] in this way, the [[analyst]] mus ttake the [[analysand]]'s [[speech]] absolutely literally (''à la lettre'').
That is, the task of the [[analyst]] is not to achieve some imaginary intuitive grasp of the [[analysand]]'s 'hidden message,' but simply to read the [[analysand]]'s [[discourse]] as if it were text, attending to the formal features of this [[discourse]], the [[signifiers]] that repeat themselves.<ref>{{S2}} p.153</ref>
Hence [[Lacan]]'s frequent warnings of the dangers of "understanding."
<blockquote>"The less you understand, the better you listen."<ref>{{S2}} p.141</ref></blockquote>
Understanding (''comprendre'') has negative connotations for [[Lacan]], implying a kind of listening that seeks only to fit the other's [[speech]]] into a preformed theory.<ref>{{E}} p.270; {{S2}} p.130; {{S8}} p.229-30</ref>
In order to do avoid this, the [[analyst]], must "forget what he knows" when listening<ref>{{Ec}} p.349</ref> and when offering [[interpretation]]s must do so "exactly as if we were completely ignorant of theory."<ref>Lacan, 1953b: 227</ref>
==See Also==
* [[Analysand]]
* [[Analyst]]
==References==
<references/>
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Terms]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Dictionary]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
=More=
Interpretation seeks to bring out, within the confines of the analytic method, the latent meaning of a subject's words and behavior; its aim is to reveal unconscious desires and the defensive conflicts that are linked to them. Technically, interpretation consists in making manifest this latent meaning, in accordance with the rules dictated by the various phases of the treatment.
The first version of the theory of interpretation was delineated by Sigmund Freud in his psychoanalytic study of dreams (1900a) and is applicable to other products of the unconscious, such as parapraxes, slips of the tongue, and symptoms. For Freud, psychoanalysis was an art of interpretation, but he preferred the term "construction" as a description of the core of the psychoanalytical method, that is, the unveiling of the unconscious. This "construction" of the unconscious is entirely a matter of applying successive interpretations to the different aspects of a case. The interpretations allow an overall perspective to emerge and thus define a strategy for the treatment; however, it might also be tactically necessary at times to adjust to unforeseen developments.
