Interpretations That Feel Horrible to Make and a Theoretical Unicorn*

In the last few years I have slowly recognised a cluster of interpretations that I find horrible to make. They are all concerned with trauma: sexual or physical abuse, handicap, fragility and death. They all reflect a clear unbearable external reality. For me to make them involves dealing with blows to my omnipotent wishes to heal, facing cowardice, helplessness, guilt, and a struggle with stupidity and blindness. These interpretations are difficult because they deal with my own fear, not only a fear that comes from a counter-transference experience.

Juliet Hopkins (1986) expresses this clearly in her paper Solving the mystery of monsters: steps towards the recovery from trauma - “It seems that helping a child to recover from trauma is liable to involve the therapist not only in sharing the pain but in suffering grave doubts about whether facing pain so starkly is necessary, and whether the self protection of turning a blind eye may be preferable”.

The problem of dealing with a blind eye applies equally to the internal and external aspects of both therapist and the child. If the child does not want to see because seeing will reveal the awfulness of his predicament, the therapist in seeing must see not only the predicament of the child but also her own areas of difficulty and the theoretical structure that either does or does not support her. In this paper I would like first to explore some theories about interpretations and then provide clinical examples of the particular interpretations I have found hardest to make.

In some ways, psychoanalytical theory is experienced as parental and inconsistencies or myths about different kinds of interpretations can provoke internal dissent and anxiety. Thoughts about a hierarchy of interpretations can play a powerful hidden part in influencing what we see and can't see. Knowing what we are not supposed to know (Bowlby, 1979) affects the therapist as much as the child. If we “know”