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Interpretation, as a word, suffers the fate of its own definition. That the word cannot be confined to a single meaning results both from its place in history, as well as from its carrying so heavy a responsibility. One interprets something at one time differently from at another—thus the role of history; and what something means is the essence of explanation—thus the burden. Psychoanalytic interpretation is doubly victimized since the mere intellectual or decoding aspect of the act of interpretation is never sufficient to fulfill what is asked of a comprehensive analytic definition. Rather, for psychoanalysis, interpretation is considered to be the basic vehicle of treatment; and so something in the definition must account both for what it means, and for what it does. There must be something in the knowing more than we did before or more than the knowing by itself that accounts for the change that we insist is the result of a proper interpretation.
To trace the evolution of the definition of interpretation it is easy to divide the phases of analytic positions. Roughly it moved from the early abcess image: the symptom relieved by discharge occasioned by interpretation, to the much later dialogue image: one that stressed what was given or added to the mix by the interpreter. There are also a host of definitions that situate themselves at points in between the minimally involved surgeon and the maximally involved surrogate parent.
Interpretations were felt to be given to the patient for his or her consideration, to be “done” to the patient for a specific effect beyond his or her control, or to be discovered by the patient as a product of mutual analytic work. In the division of labor the patient associated freely, and the analyst made sense of this material. This simple assignment of tasks, however, has recently undergone something of a radical transformation, which derives from a new-found interest in interpretive science or hermeneutics, as well as from some not-too-r