Commentary on “Behind, Beneath, Above, and Beyond: The Historical Unconscious,” by Timothy J. Zeddies

First I must confess that when I see the word “hermeneutics” I want to run the other way. I know I am about to be inundated by a sea of words that are assumed to mean the same for us all. Yet, such an assumption will inevitably be false inasmuch as these words are densely packed signifiers. The very elegance of the language leads us to believe that actual verities of the human condition are being bestowed upon our eager minds. We seek to comprehend the explanations that unfortunately may take us further and further from the raw data of clinical experience into the stratosphere of ideas run amok.

This said, I think Dr. Zeddies's article is scholarly and elegantly constructed as well as challenging and thought provoking. I determined to extract from it that which would be meaningful for me. That means its usefulness for me will be determined by the degree of fit of its concepts with my own personal cognitive mass. My understanding will surely be deepened and enhanced, but always within the realm of my own reality, at least to the extent that these concepts are not alien to that reality. I believe that this will be true of anyone who dives into the words of hermeneutics. To bring this about, however, I have to come down to earth to clinical experience. I am constitutionally unable (or maybe just unwilling) to diddle endlessly with free-floating ideas.

I want to focus on one word—history—as a densely packed signifier that clearly has different associations and implications for us all. History is defined as a record of past events. But what events? There will be many different answers to this simple question. Each will take us to different explanatory principles. For the author, the question leads to explicitly inherited values, beliefs, and assumptions which we inherit through family, culture, and community. And yes, this answer is valid. However, in no way does it tell the whole story about any given individual and what is relevant to who that person is, to his way of be