You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Bergeret is perplexed about the notion of interpretation and the way it is used in analytic circles. There were difficulties in finding an appropriate translation for Freud's word Deutung. An interpreter gives a translation, while an analyst gives interpretations; these do not seem to be of the same order. One speaks of an interpretation of a theatrical or musical work, in which the interpreter imposes his version upon the work. Not even the most orthodox of Freudian analysts would now dare to operate the way Freud did in administering interpretations to his patient, even though Freud's interpretations seem eminently pertinent and we wish we could be as brilliant. Why this difference between our mode of interpretation and Freud's? Bergeret thinks there are two levels that must be discerned. There has been change in the aim of interpretation since Freud; and secondly, the fashion in which an interpretation is used in an analysis has changed considerably. We have learned much about the development of mental life, from ethologists in particular, and from the work of child psychoanalysts. We have a better idea of the interaction of the developing infant with its environment. We can no longer claim simply to be bringing a missing link to the patient's chain of associations. When one has the feeling of providing the correct interpretation in a session, it comes probably not from the brilliance of the interpretation or its exactitude, but from the fact that it comes at the moment the patient is prepared for it and ready to assimilate it.