Reconstruction and Theory Formation1

Freud frequently compared the work of the psychoanalyst with the excavations of the archaeologist, and demonstrated a variety of identical, or rather similar, features in the work of both. This comparison led him to suggest, in his late paper on "Constructions in Analysis" (9), how psychoanalytic interpretative work leads to the formation of constructions, a term which is more usually referred to in present-day literature as reconstruction. In this connection, he states that it

… is not, however, a preliminary labour in the sense that the whole of it must be completed before the next piece of work can be begun, as, for instance, is the case with house-building, where all the walls must be erected and all the windows inserted before the internal decoration of the rooms can be taken in hand. Every analyst knows that things happen differently in an analytic treatment and that there are both kinds of work carried on side by side, the one kind being always a little ahead and the other following upon it. The analyst finishes a piece of construction and communicates it to the subject of the analysis, so that it may work upon him; he then constructs a further piece out of the fresh material pouring in upon him, deals with it in the same way and proceeds in this alternating fashion until the end. If, in accounts of analytic technique, so little is said about 'constructions, ' that is because 'interpretations' and their effects are spoken of instead. But I think 'construction' is by far the more appropriate description. 'Interpretation' applies to something that one does to some single element of the material, such as an association or a parapraxis. But it is a