Interpretation: Toward a Contemporary Understanding of the Term

IN PURSUING A CONTEMPORARY UNDERSTANDING of the term interpretation the panelists found themselves grappling with the definitions of the nature of the analytic process, the mode of its therapeutic action, the value and the effects upon it of its conceptual models as well as the epistemologic significance of those models.

Jacob A. Arlow introduced the panel, stressing its value as a forum for discussion of a central theoretical and clinical question: The role of interpretation, of insight in contrast to the role of the analyst as new object in the mode of therapeutic action of psychoanalysis. He recalled, "From the very beginning of its history, psychoanalysis represented a science of the mind, a discipline of interpretation, first of psychopathology and later of mental functioning in general. It [interpretation] is, or perhaps we should say, it has been, generally considered as the essential element in effecting therapeutic results through psychoanalysis. Generally understood, giving interpretation is the most characteristic feature of the analyst's activity."

Arlow's phrase "it has been" emphasizes the current controversy concerning the relation of interpretation to the mode of therapeutic action of psychoanalysis. He reflected on the history of psychoanalysis, noting: "In the early days of psychoanalysis, there was general agreement as to what had to be interpreted and understood. What was unconscious had to be made conscious, and this was effected by explaining