Chapter 28. Learning from Experience

1 Some patients who are concerned to prove their superiority to the analyst by defeating his attempts at interpretation can be shown that they are mis-understanding the interpretations to demonstrate that an ability to mis-understand is superior to an ability to understand. Interpretations based on this insight can lead to further development of the analysis. If the patient suffers from a disorder of thought, interpretations of mis-understanding lead to some illumination, but do not appear to carry matters much further. For this problem a more inclusive concept is necessary.

2 Using the procedures adumbrated here I first resort to the abstraction represented by the sign K and then reverse the sign to –K. Assuming that the signs of all factors in K are also reversed, I use the theories that represent factors in K as preconceptions to aid in my search for factors in –K. Those factors, now employed as preconceptions are employed, can be represented in their new employment by ♀. It may make my meaning clearer if I say that I am in a state of receptive observation as opposed to a state in which I pass judgement on what I observe. I can further describe it approximately by saying I become absorbed in my task of observation or that I am absorbed in the facts. In short there are many ways in which I can attempt to describe my mental activity; all of them may contribute to an understanding of what I am engaged on, but none of them does so with the precision that I think necessary for communicating psychoanalytic procedure. The advantage of employing a sign ♀ to designate the new role of factors in K is that it at least indicates that the reader's comprehension of my meaning should contain an element that will

remain unsatisfied until he meets the appropriate realization, an element that can be represented by the sign ψ (ξ), (ξ) being itself the sign for an unsaturated element.

3 The sections that follow are an attempt to describe the results of observation in which precon