Based on Jean Laplanche's “translational model” of psychic development (1987) and the author's experience as a translator, this article describes the psychic work of patient and analyst in the session as a “translation process”. The translator “crosses a barrier” (between languages), and the encounter between author and translator can be seen as a transgressive, linguistic primal scene. This understanding of the work of translation as rooted in infantile sexuality enables the author to make a parallel with the analytic process. Two clinical examples provide an illustration of how the “translation process” in the session can be either supported or hindered by the analyst.

In the first case, the analyst's focus on translation as a process, rather than on content, enabled the patient to begin working through the loss of her father, while in the second case, the analyst's resistances triggered by the traumatic nature of the underlying sexual fantasy concerning the analytic situation prevented the patient from developing her own “translation” abilities, leading to a reaction of physical pain. These clinical vignettes are discussed in the light of both Laplanche's Theory of General Seduction and Freud's view of the Ego as a “frontier creature”.