Relying on concepts from Ferenczi's “Confusion of Tongues between Adults and the Child,” I suggest that the analytic enterprise consists of a metaphorical translation of passionately disrupted experience into tender, integrated terms, in the here and now analytic moment. To demonstrate this, I trace the narrative in the principal speeches in Plato's Symposium whose themes of virtuous love, regression to oneness, and confrontation with lack provide a rubric for key aspects of the psychoanalytic process. An extended clinical case presentation is used to highlight the themes in the Platonic dialogue while ideas from Ferenczi's contributions to clinical psychoanalysis are linked to the material throughout. I end with a reflection on the centrality of the process of translation in psychoanalytic work while suggesting future directions for inquiry.