Interpreting Interpretation
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The Limits of Hermeneutic Psychoanalysis
Elyn Saks
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Format: ClothPrice: $65.00
If patients understood the true nature of the various models of hermeneutic psychoanalysis, Saks argues, they would spurn the story model, which asks patients to believe interpretations that do not purport to be true; that is, the psychoanalyst simply tells stories that give meaning to patients’ lives, the truth of which is not considered relevant. And patients would question the metaphor and the interpretations-as-literary-criticism models, which propose views of psychoanalysis that may be unsatisfying. In addition to discussing which hermeneutic models of treatment are plausible, Saks discusses the nature of metaphorical truth. She arrives at some penetrating insights into the theory of psychoanalysis itself.
"This is a challenging book by a law professor who has been trained as a psychoanalyst. In a stimulating and clarifying manner, the author explores theories of interpretation in psychoanalysis by formulating and analyzing five models of hermeneutic psychoanalysis. With the provocative presumption that patients would reject hermeneutic psychoanalysis if informed of its true metaphoric nature, the author forces into view cutting-edge, penetrating questions for all who are interested in psychoanalysis and its applications."—Albert J. Solnit, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics & Psychiatry, Yale University
“Well informed and tightly reasoned, this book makes an original and important contribution to the topic of psychoanalytic interpretation.”—Ernst Prelinger, Yale School of Medicine
"The intelligent person’s guide to hermeneutic psychoanalysis in its five guises, clear and robust. And why any patient informed of its nature would reject the hermeneutic effort and seek ’historical’ truth rather than ’narrative’ substitutes. Compelling."—Gerald Aronson, M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Los Angeles Institute of Psychoanalysis
“This volume is a difficult and important effort to illuminate various aspects of interpretation and to provide a typology of hermeneutics in psychoanalysis. . . . Psychoanalysis can be more effective, the more they understand and think about the various origins and elements of interpretation. This volume will provide analysts of all persuasions with new ways to obtain this understanding.”—Richard L. Munich, Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic
“[Saks] succeeds in giving readers a clearer sense of the positions of prominent hermeneuts, and in providing models that make the different versions of hermeneutics in analytic thinking and practice easier to understand. The book can be recommended to anyone interested in hermeneutics, to analysts with a hermeneutic orientation, and to the uninitiated who might want a bird’s-eye perspective of hermeneutic analysis.”—Cecilio Paniagua, JAPA
Publication Date: April 10, 1999
