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Meaning, Mind, and Self-Transformation: Psychoanalytic Interpretation and the Interpretation of Psychoanalysis

Author(s) : Victor L. Schermer

Reviews and Endorsements

‘I applaud this valuable book that seeks to loosen the grip of scientism on traditional Anglo-American psychoanalysis by arguing persuasively that it is a hermeneutic discipline with interpretation lying at the core of its method. Victor Schermer adds his voice to the growing number of contemporary authors who wish to help psychoanalysis find its rightful place among the human sciences.’
— Robert D. Stolorow, PhD, author of World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis

‘Victor Schermer’s book describes the journey between scientific causality and hermeneutic meaning. Starting with Freud’s undeniable contribution to hermeneutics – the understanding of dreams as meaningful wishes fulfilled – this book grasps a vast swathe of European philosophy, from Herder to Husserl and beyond. Freud and later psychoanalysts, especially in the object relations tradition of Winnicott and Bion, have shown that the human contribution to nature is to have experiences and to construct narratives. Psychoanalysis must prioritise that. The core of the book for me is the Heideggerian sense of being in the world of the other and with the other. The Talmudic inspiration for Freud’s dissection of dreams is well known, but here, it is modern hermeneutics that gives psychoanalysis its true philosophical foundation in the Continental tradition. For psychoanalysts, there is an education here in this branch of philosophy.’
— Robert D. Hinshelwood, PhD, author of Research on the Couch: Single Case Studies, Subjectivity, and Psychoanalytic Knowledge

‘This book manages to cover a huge field – hermeneutics – in a thoughtfully focused manner that whilst not fully inclusive (how could it be?) is remarkably wide ranging. The act of interpretation is too often put in the margins of other actions within the psychoanalytical field, but Victor Schermer returns it to the limelight and any reader interested in the history and practice of psychoanalysis, within the larger field of hermeneutics, will be fascinated by his study.’
—Christopher Bollas, PhD, author of The Freudian Moment