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

Interpretation is the primary intervention of psychoanalysis. Until now it has been discussed almost exclusively from a technical standpoint, rather than its relationship to the mind, human life, and how it affects the personality. This book explores the intrinsic nature of interpretation in psychoanalysis. For that purpose, two streams of thought are brought into dialogue with one another: Anglo-American psychoanalysis and Continental European philosophical hermeneutics, the study of meaning and interpretation.

This book celebrates and makes explicit the value of interchanges between the paradigm of science and philosophical hermeneutics. It is divided into three sections, preceded by a discussion of the relationship between psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and the sciences, with psychoanalysis at a crossroads seeking a new path. Part I starts with a consideration of Freud’s methodology in The Interpretation of Dreams, moving to a review of ancient, romantic, and modern theories of interpretation as they relate to psychoanalysis. Part II, largely intended for clinicians, provides a hermeneutical view of the psychoanalytic situation, the dimensions and polarities of treatment, the components of the unfolding process, and a discussion of self-transformation and personality change. Part III, which may be read as a series of independent essays, offers reflections on selected Anglo-American schools of psychoanalysis from the standpoint of philosophical hermeneutics. Included are examinations of the work of Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, and W.R. Bion, as well as explorations of relational psychoanalysis, intersubjectivity, and neuroscience.