Two collegial conversations sparked curiosity concerning how analysts think about interpretation. These conversations suggest a conceptual split between interpretation and emotional experience, which can be seen to emanate from current theoretical tensions, notably between early Bion's focus on K (amusingly standing for Klein) and late Bion's focus on O (aligning with Winnicott). Driving these contrasts are long-seeded cultural antagonisms, particularly one between whether thought and experience emanate from a perspective that is primarily conceptual/rational or intuitive/emotional. The author seeks to find an integrative approach in order to think about these tensions from a different point of view. A survey of the history of interpretation from its beginnings in ancient Greek thought through psychoanalysis provides such a vantage point. What emerges is the idea that psychoanalytic interpretation has deep, complex roots in philosophy, religion and poetry in ways that provide bridges between competing psychoanalytic theories. These three fields are necessary in order to grasp the indissoluble yet agonistic relationship between language (K) and being (O). Interpretation becomes the link, between the baby and adult parts of the self, the superego and the ego, subjectivity in the context of objectivity, and sexuality and mentality.