What is Meant by the Term Interpretation, and What is it For?

Abstract

Analysts seem spellbound by language when it comes to the word interpretation, a word so idealized and grand, so laden with fantasy, that the term itself continues to hold a magical sense that defies us to think about it. Called upon to do far too much explanatory work in psychoanalysis, it is accorded a variety of meanings. It is employed for varied uses, often simultaneously, making it hard to know what analysts mean when referring to "interpretation" and what uses they intend for it. Approaches to interpretation may be heuristically separated into those having to do with the content of the unconscious and those attempting to "use" interpretation in a manner still not divorced from content. What it means to attempt to interpret what is by definition uninterpretable is yet another area to be explored. Accordingly, issues of construction, co-construction, and transformation are examined. Every interpretation is at once a concealment, every inscription a negation, every representation a re-presentation of something unrepresentable. Despite this, the concept of interpretation, even if theoretically unsupportable in large measure, retains its clinical utility.