You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This diligently composed work on interpretation in psychoanalysis is very interesting in a number of respects. The author offers a highly systematic and didactic study of the theory of technique and the many technical variations that exist. The book will also stimulate the reader to question his own theoretical positions. Although it is stressed that theory contains a portion of truth and must be seen as a hypothesis to be verified with the patient in the clinical situation, it seems inevitable that interpretation, the conceptualisation of the analytic process and the therapeutic objectives will be influenced by one's theoretical postulates.
Joan Coderch, whose background is Kleinian, carries on a lively and enthusiastic dialogue with authors of different allegiances. He compares the various theoretical contributions and measures them against his own enormous clinical experience. His independence emerges when he expresses his personal critical views.
In my opinion, in discussing the transference and its interpretation the author is embarking on a complex and controversial adventure. He seeks to live with different conceptualisations of the theory of technique. For all the merits of his wish to reconcile different theoretical paradigms, he thereby runs the risk of introducing contradictions in the attempt to integrate theoretical postulates that sit uneasily together.
In the first chapter, on the complexity of the act of interpretation, he conveys his desire to pursue this task in depth. The aim of interpretation based on the Freudian model of The Interpretation of Dreams is to reveal the hidden sense of the clinical material. In the genesis of the interpretation designed to obtain access to the unconscious meaning of the transference fantasy, his preferred approach is that of intuitive understanding based on countertransference empathy. According to the author, the logical-deductive component of the interpretation unfolds in working through, investigation and communica