Saturday, April 16, 2011

Hans Dieckmann on Interpretation

"A complete interpretation...never takes place in a single analytic hour but may often extend over long periods of time.  I would understand this sort of complete and successful interpretation as a conscious, emotionally laden verbal act on the part of the analyst which leads to bringing to consciousness a previously unconscious complex as well as the resistence and the systems of defense that have held this complex fast in the unconscious.  A complete and successful interpretation should embrace the three tenses - past, present, and future - and should describe both the contents and the emotional cathexes.  Likewise, it should give information about the personal contents and the archetypal core of the complex.  In this context, 'past' signifies the genetic component of the complex, that is, answers the questions of when and under what conditions did the complex develop and and why was it absolutely necessary in the development of this particular patient to suppress and repress the contents, feelings, and affects of precisely this complex.  To the present belongs first and foremost the interpretation of the effects that these complex contents evoke within the transference and counter-transference situation between analyst and patient, and beyond that, of course, also those distorted situations that arise through projection of the unconscious complex contents in the current life situation of the patient as well as in interpersonal relationships in general.  'Future' refers to the 'final' element contained in every unconscious complex that presses into consciousness....The final component - i.e. the tendency toward meaning and purpose that arises when drive and image are linked and in which the possibilities of resolution and development are contained - must be brought to consciousness or made conscious, and consciousness must judge it, that is accept it or reject it."

Hans Dieckmann (1991), Methods in Analytical Psychology, Wilmette, IL: Chiron,  p. 166.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.