Inductive Thinking and Interpretation

The notion of considering the kind of thinking we use in our regular life is not-in any way- a common one. Still, it is very informative in some fields of epistemology like psychoanalysis. The reason is not obvious but important. The interpreting of dreams-like the  Irma dream- demonstrated that there is an unconscious process parallel to every conscious process. Since this is the case in all the work the analyst does, he has to think about the ‘implicit’ in every ‘explicit’ the patient delivers in his sessions (verbal and none verbal). Knowing about the process of thinking is imperative and not just gratuitous. Even so, that knowledge is vital in just knowing what to do with what we are dealing with: am I to wait for more to deduce from, or this is enough induce its meaning give an interpretation or even progress to make a reconstruction. What I am emphasizing here is that the analyst should know what is involved in his work to avoid the slackness that creeps in the analysis because of its repetitiveness and length.

In the Irma dream, Freud induced from the dream scene that in order to make the accusation of failure belong to all of ‘them’ he created the scene of the dream where his most likely critiques were doing ridiculous things. Interpreting a dream, a slip of the tongue or a symptom, and now we could add character formation, etc., needs deductive thinking to elicit from the details the main theme. However, if a patient is always few minutes late for his session we try to deduce (elicit) a meaning from that general or common behavior, i.e., find out what does this repetitive behavior is saying. In more related meaning to those two types of thinking we could say that we deduce from the details the general meaning, and from the general we induce the details of the general issue. Better, in analysis we are constantly using inductive and deductive thinking almost spontaneously, but we would do a better job if we knew if we have only enough to interpret or enough  to reconstruct. However, it could also be said: isn’t that what most people do normally in their daily life and without even being aware of thinking? Yes, people think and use induction and deduction without doing that consciously. But how much do we misunderstand, wrongly  understand, respond with the wrong adjective or adverb, and we get thing even worse by trying to correct ourselves without thinking of thinking.

We cannot or should not put ourselves- as psychoanalysts- in such a position of not knowing if deduction is required or there is a meaning that we should induce to give an interpretation? Our problem as analysts is that we have one tool to do our work: thinking and choosing the proper words to help the patients. Moreover, when we engage  ourselves in a general matter, we are still expected to be more thoughtful and accurate.

Our work as analysts, therapists or not, is to ‘interpret’. We are expected to understand matter of human nature more deeply. By definition a psychoanalyst interprets not explain, which means to derive from the given what is latent. I have to interrupt this line of thinking at this point to introduce a different but related issue. An interpretation has to be done within a context because-strange enough-it is the context that would make the interpretation meaningful. The Irma Dream, like all dreams, had a context that could be derived from the day residues. The context was talking-the day before the dream- about the unsuccessful work Freud with doing with Irma. Without the context of the psychic material the interpretation could be deductive or inductive and as a fact unrelated to what is analyzed. The strength of an analytic interpretation the kind of thinking that linked it to the context. Psychoanalysis is unique in understanding the human phenomena because any attempt at understanding is dependent onto how the context of the issue becomes the interpretation of the interpretation. I will go the example of the patient who comes late to her session. The context was creating a time gap between the patient before her-who was also a female- and herself, which eventually revealed a competitiveness of transference nature.

We need to keep in mind- all or most of the time- that interpretation is the dealing with the material that is delivered as free association. Construction is a different ‘ball game’. Construction is the kind of psychoanalytic work that is derived from transference. Transference is the psychic material that goes back actual interpersonal relationships in the history of the patient. Therefore, inductive and deductive thinking in dealing with transference take a slightly different place in the psychoanalytic work.

This would be a separate topic that when is done properly (I hope) it will get us to the doorstep of training.