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Interpretation is a basic activity founded in the phenomenology of perception and the structures of behaviour (Merleau-Ponty, 1942)(1945). The organization of experience in its interpretation leads out into the contrasting psychical modes of understanding and explanation. The phenomenon of transference, consciously exploited as a vehicle in psychoanalysis, is something to be both understood and explained, while its interpretation is the distinguishing mark of psychoanalytic therapy.
As Whitehead (1927), Langer (1942) and others have observed, a relatively small number of primitive experiences open out into an increasingly large number of symbolic representations. This reductive/expansive gradient in symbolism makes interpretation possible.