The author opposes the two principal conceptions of interpretation: the deterministic conception predominant in Freud, in which the present is determined by the subject's actual past; and the creative hermeneutic conception, which traces its origins back not only to Heidegger and Ricoeur but also to Jung; in the latter view, interpretation cannot but be retroactive, assigning significance to a meaningless past.

The author shows that Freud, in exactly the same way as the hermeneuts in the opposing camp, remains the prisoner of the antithesis of factual reality and a purely subjective interpretation close to fantasy. He lacks a third category, that of the message whose meaning is immanent, in particular taking the form of the mostly non-verbal sexual messages conveyed by the adult to the small child.