One factor that differentiates classical from contemporary psychoanalysis is how interpretations are framed and offered to the patient. Interpretations can be defined in multiple ways: a contemporary offering is that whatever the therapist says or does is an “interpretation” or communicated understanding of something the patient said or did. One of the roles of the therapist, and a factor in how therapy is effective at helping people feel better, is to make interpretations of the patients ideas (or interpretations): the therapist might point out something the patient can not see, draw a link between two or more things, highlight or clarify something, summarize what he has heard, signify that he has been listening and paying attention, agreeing or disagreeing with the patient . . . all can be considered to be interpretations of the meaning of something, or the therapist’s interpretation of what the patient needs from him from moment to moment.
In contrast, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, considered the human mind and behaviour to follow certain knowable laws, the truth of which could be definitively learned and communicated by the therapist to the patient when he discovered this truth. Therapy was a “one person” therapy in that the patient was to be scientifically and objectively studied by the therapist, who could glean the truth about the patient and didactically share this truth in order to enable to patient to gain insight and therefore change his or her behavior. The patient was the knowee and the therapist was the knower or teacher of the “facts” about the patient’s mind. The therapist’s perspective was privileged and relatively absolute.
In contemporary psychoanalysis, however, every interpretation is simultaneously considered a question to the patient, which he or she may confirm, deny, elaborate and expand. If the therapist does not actually form the interpretation as a question, he or she might frame the interpretation with comments such as, “I was thinking so and so . . . what do you think? Does that feel right or fit your experience?” With some patients I might even say, “I’m not sure about this idea, but see if this makes sense to you . . .”
Ideas are provisional things to be played with, as a child plays with toys or an artist paints a picture. Patients are no longer considered to be “things” to be objectively studied and definitively known, but as people with unique subjectivities that, when combined with our own subjectivities, can (co-)create (not necessarily discover) useful and interesting ideas that are to be played with in a creative way. There are even schools of thought who privilege the patient’s sense of what is real, right or true, and it is the therapist’s job to learn the “truth” from the patient who teaches it to him (what would Sigmund say!) Objective facts and objective truth have lost ground in psychoanalysis to subjective feeling, playful construction and intersubjective communication. It isn’t that therapists are not still trying to figure things out, we are, but what has changed is our openness to finding what is there to be found or created without needing to make a decision about the accuracy of what we find. While it is not possible to be unbiased or free from assumptions, a belief in the therapist’s fallibility and a suspicion of their status as “experts” about other people’s histories and feelings has freed up therapists to be less dogmatic, more open to learning from their patients, and more playful, creative and exploratory.
Every interpretation is therefore also a question, or a number of questions: Am I on the right track? Do I get you? This idea is a toy to be played with – care to play with me in this language-game? I am thinking about you – do you want to think about yourself with me? I’m not sure I know you, but I want to know you, how well do I know you so far?”
