Chapter 5. Elements of Psycho-Analysis

The conclusions of the previous chapter suggest that decision requires further discussion; does it involve the translation of thought into action, or some analogous process, for example of thought into a fixed idea, a variable as it were into a constant? Since the analyst is constantly called upon to decide whether to intervene with an interpretation, decision and its components of loneliness and introspection should be regarded as an element of psychoanalysis, at least from the point of view of the analyst and therefore probably from the point of view of both patient and analyst.

Introspection, that any practising analyst can carry out for himself, into what clichés he most commonly uses often suggests that the problem in analysis is to know which of several possible interpretations is at a given time correct; it arises from awareness of the number of ideas expressed in papers on analysis and even more from the variety of human behaviour as it is experienced in ordinary life. In practice the impression is not so formidable: analytic interpretations can be seen to be theories held by the analyst about the models and theories the patient has of the analyst. It is believed and intended that the analyst's theories, if correct in content and expression, exert a therapeutic effect. Introspection will, I believe, show most analysts that the theories they employ are relatively few in number and may be seen to fall into the following categories:

1 Definition. Roughly such interpretations take the form that the patient is showing by his associations that he is, say, depressed. In so far as it is a definitory hypothesis it is by way of saying ‘This, that you, the patient, are now experiencing is what I, and, in my opinion, most people, would call depression.‘ In so far as it is to define for the patient what the analyst means by definition, there can be no

argument about it because the only valid criticism would be if the statement could be shown to be absurd because self-con