On the Properties of an Interpretation

INTERPRETATIONS HAVE, FROM THE BEGINNINGS of psychoanalysis (and psychoanalytic psychotherapy), played a central role in the analyst's armamentarium. There have been many coincidental and focused discussions of this intervention (for references and other properties of interpretations, see Greenson 1967), (and Langs 1973), (1976b), (1978a), (1979a). Yet, despite the fact that virtually all writers agree that interpretations entail techniques through which important unconscious contents and processes are made conscious for the patient, there remain many clinical uncertainties in regard to the timing, formulation, and structure of this intervention. The present paper is designed to extend my own efforts to investigate this aspect of technique, and in particular to further refine recent endeavors to define its central properties (see especially Langs 1979a), (1979b).

The main thesis of this presentation will be that a complete interpretation entails the identification of the adaptive context: this relates to the analytic interaction, particularly to the most recent interventions of the analyst; and the Type Two derivatives: material relating to the prevailing adaptive context in terms of unconscious perceptions, fantasies, and memories (the genetic element); all of this integrated in a manner that imparts understanding to the prevailing therapeutic context (the patient's material) that serves as an indicator to the therapist to intervene.

Beyond that central focus, I will also comment on the vicissitudes of the patient's processing of the interpretations offered to him—a much neglected related topic.

In essence, then, the thesis of this paper is to the effect that a valid interpretation will always be concerned with an activated disturbance within the patient, its implications in light of adaptation-evoking stimuli from the therapist as understood in light of a series