Menne's critique is directed against Alfred Lorenzer's definition of the repressed unconscious as something that has been excommunicated from (public) language, something extralinguistic, desymbolized. This presupposition, argues Menne, leads to insoluble contradictions when one attempts to reformulate the psychoanalytic method. Understanding, in the context of daily discourse, refers to the public as well as to the unconscious meanings communicated and eliminates distortions. Accordingly, psychoanalysis is an analysis of language which includes the understanding of unconscious material.