B. What is Therapeutic in a Psychoanalytic Interpretation? 

                                 Interpreting the link between the intrapsychic and the interpersonal 

    In a previous part on this subject two issues were highlighted: Interpretation and Reconstruction. It was also emphasized that the unconscious- which is the analysts' main subject of interpretation- is there to hear and listen to within the patient's conscious speech. In a way, we are supposed to accept the patients rhetoric as the conscious\unconscious expression of their psychic condition. This way the act of psychoanalysis is definable, identifiable, and has to be done with the fixed idea that we analysts should not interfere with the free associations of the patient. However, this could also mean that we should not interfere with the patient's resistances. For that reason, it is recommended not to think that there is a structure in the work of psychoanalysis with patients [except the conditions we discuss with the patient before we start the work, like number of sessions, etc.]. The patient's rhetoric contains the unconscious material we need to interpret but we are also trained not to interpret prematurely, yet there is no guidelines to what and how to identify a mature moment to interpret.

    There is though a guiding principle in that aspect. The patient's rhetoric-directly or indirectly- is about himself. That self is the impact of  what was created in the early upbringing of his life and persisted since childhood. The intrapsychic, or the character formation that the patient is living is his basic Self. The patient’s interpersonal relationships, which is the reason (cause) for getting into therapy are basically products of that intrapsychic formations. However, the intrapsychic in psychoanalysis is not the regular relationships the patient has with other. The invitation to the patient to say whatever comes to his mind is not as it was thought before as free association. It is acting out in analysis what is named by Freud transference. Transference is bringing back moments of the process of forming the basic interpersonal relationships of childhood. The very early interpersonal is transferred to the process of psychoanalyzing in the form of “transference”.  Therefor, the issue of when to interpret is not a mater of timing but a matter of what to interpret to connect the present (transference) with the past of that transference. Amazingly, Freud (1912) recognized the phantasmic nature of transference, transference resistance, transference as an obstacle the analyst has to bypass without encouraging it or discouraging it, all that long before having a clear and guiding model of the stages of development (the distinct types of intrapsychic\interpersonal relationship of each stage of building a stable identity). It is amazing because we know now -in supervision- how important to show the candidate what type of intrapsychic inadequacy he deals with in the patient's transference, to know even what best words to you use in his interpretations. A transference of anal aggressive conflicts requires using terminology of anger and explosivity. 

        We come to the point now to say with the confidence of clarity  psychoanalysis is the act on INTERPRETING the patient’s interpersonal relationships by his intrapsychic formation, which we could (with some patience and skill) hear  it entwined in the patient transference and expressed in his conscious rhetoric. As mentioned above: Psychoanalysis is the act of  interpreting the interpersonal with the material we get from transference and reconstructing the intrapsychic from the conscious material the patient uses to talk about himself.

        The issue of timing the interpretation, the words to use to articulate that interpretation in a way that relates specifically to this patient’s rhetoric, making the patient’s  give the discovery of the interpreted intrapsychic a curative  potential, and most of all keeping the patient unaffected by the skill of the analyst, is an important aspect of good psychoanalysis. This note came to my mind just now because I was going to say that the basic and main idea in this post is my understanding of J. Lacn’s seminaire on “L’act Psychoanalytiques” (1967\1968). I did not finish attending that seminar (fifty five years ago) because I did not digest his way mixing in his ‘actually’ brilliant psychoanalytic mind with his personal brillience.