This article explores and develops the notion of “detranslation” introduced by Jean Laplanche. As both a psychoanalyst and translator of Freud, Laplanche developed a translation theory of the genesis of the unconscious which is part of his “generalized theory of seduction”. The author leaves aside the usual Laplanchian definition of “detranslation” as a synonym for analytic interpretation. Drawing on the experiences described by Freud and Proust and on a clinical example, she shows how “detranslation”, understood as occurring during brief perceptual fluctuations, can reveal the “untranslated aspects” of the analytic situation and give rise to a movement of elaboration, of (re)translation in the analysand and analyst alike. Detranslation is thus seen here as essential to the work of translation not only in its dimension of going “back and forth”, but also of conflict between unbinding and binding, between perceptual experience and psychic experience.