Incorrect interpretations are unavoidable given that the nature of psychoanalytic inference is inexact, that the interactional pressures which are brought to bear may be intense, and that the analyst is human. However, the potentially harmful iatrogenic effect of incorrect interpretations upon the patient must be acknowledged and analysed.

The patient develops a transitional relationship to the analyst's interpretations which is disrupted by interpretive errors and replaced by transference reactions to a pathogenic object. The patient's response repeats, in microcosm, his past affective and defensive responses to similar environmental lapses or impingements.