‌‌‌‌　　英：interpretation; 法：interpretation

‌‌‌‌　　分析家在治疗中的角色是双重性的。首先，他必须倾听分析者，但是他也必须通过向分析者言说来进行干预。尽管分析家的言说是以很多不同的言语行动 (提出问题、给予指示等)为特征的，然而解释的提供在治疗中扮演着最重要且最与众不同的角色。宽泛地说，当分析家说出的话语颠覆了分析者在意识层面上看待某种事物的“日常”见解的时候，我们便可以说分析家提供了一则解释。

‌‌‌‌　　弗洛伊德起初开始向他的病人们提供解释，是为了帮助她们回忆起在记忆中遭受压抑的某一观念。这些解释都是训练有素的猜测，即根据病人从其事件描述中所遗留的内容来推测是什么导致了其症状的形成。例如，在他最早记录的一则解释中，弗洛伊德便告诉一位病人说她并未全盘托出自己向其雇主的孩子们表现出强烈情感的全部动机，他又继续说道：“我相信你其实是爱上了你的雇主，那位总监，尽管你自己或许对此浑然不知”（Freud, 1895d:SEⅡ，117)。解释的目的即在于帮助病人意识到那些无意识的思想。

‌‌‌‌　　解释的模型是弗洛伊德在《释梦》(Freud, I900a)当中确立下来的，虽然只是明确地关涉梦境，但是弗洛伊德在这部作品中有关解释的那些评论，却也同样适用于所有其他的无意识构形 (过失行为、诙谐、症状等)。在此书的第二章中，精神分析式的解释方法便由于自由联想方法的使用而区别于“译码式”(decoding)的解释方法：精神分析性的解释并非在于参照一套预先存在的等价系统来给一个梦境赋予某种意义，而是在于参照梦者本人的种种联想。由此可知，如果不同的人梦见了同样的形象，那么这一形象便会意味着很多不同的事物。即便当弗洛伊德后来承认梦中“象征意义”(symbolism)的存在 (即某些形象除了对于个别梦者的特殊意义之外，还有着固定的普遍意义)，他也总是主张解释应当首先聚焦于特殊的意义，并且警告不要“高估象征符在释梦中的重要性”(Freud, 1900a: SEV, 359-60).

‌‌‌‌　　在精神分析运动的历史初期，解释迅速开始成为分析家最重要的工具，是他在病人身上取得治疗效果的主要手段。因为症状被认为是一个遭受压抑的观念的表达，所以解释便被看作是通过帮助病人变得意识到那一观念来治愈症状。然而，在解释的提供似乎取得显著效果的这一最初时期之后，分析家们在1910一1920年便开始注意到他们的解释变得不那么有效了。特别是，纵使在分析家已然针对症状提供了各种详尽的解释之后，这一症状还是会继续存在。

‌‌‌‌　　为了说明此种现象，分析家们便转向了阻抗 (RESISTANCE)的概念，认为仅仅针对症状的无意识意义提供解释是不够的，还必须祛除病人不愿充分意识到此种意义的阻抗 (见：Strachey, 1934)。然而，拉康提出了一则不同的说明。他指出，解释在1920年之后的递减效力，是由于分析家们自己所激起的某种无意识的“关闭”(S2,10-11; S8,390)。除此之外，拉康还指责第一代分析家们越来越倾向于把他们的解释更多地奠定在象征意义的基础之上（不顾弗洛伊德的相反劝告），从而又回到了前精神分析性的“译码式”解释方法。这样的做法不但把解释降格成了一套固定公式，而且让病人也很快便能够准确地预知分析家会对他们所产生的任何特殊症状或联想做出何种说辞 (正如拉康揶榆讽刺地评论道，“这无疑是可以捉弄算命先生的那种最惹人恼火的诡计”；Ec, 462)。解释因而便同时缺乏了中肯的关联性 (relevance)与震撼的价值 (shock-value).

‌‌‌‌　　在拉康之前已然有个别其他的分析家认识到了由于病人日益了解精神分析的理论这一事实所导致的问题。然而，他们针对这一问题所提出的解决办法是“病人一方的过多知识应该被代之以分析家一方的更多知识”(Ferenczi and Rank, 1925:61)。换句话说，他们敦促分析家去创制更加复杂的理论，以便领先病人一步。然而，拉康提出了一种不同的解决办法。他指出，分析家所需要的不是日益复杂性的解释，而是用一种截然不同的方式来处理解释。因此，拉康便提倡一种“更新的解释技术”(E, 82), 从而挑战了经典精神分析的解释模型的那些潜在的基本假定。

‌‌‌‌　　经典的解释采取的形式，往往都是把梦境、症状、过失行为或者联想归于某种并非是由病人给它赋予的意义。例如，解释可以采取“借由这个症状，你真正想说的是你欲望着x”这样的形式。这里的基本假定即在于解释揭露了某种隐藏的意义，而其真实性则可以通过让病人产生更多的联想来加以证实。拉康所挑战的正是此种假定，他声称分析性的解释应当不再针对揭示隐藏的意义，而是相反针对瓦解意义；“与其说解释针对的是‘有意义' (makingsense), 不如说它导向的是把能指化约为其‘无意义’(non-sense)以便由此找出主体所有行径的那些决定性因素”（S11,212, 本书作者自译）。解释因而便颠倒了能指与所指之间的关系：解释并非是正常的意义生产（能指产生所指），而是在5的层面上运作以生成S: 解释会引起那些“无意义”的“不可化约的能指”出现（S11,250)。因此，对拉康而言，问题便不是在于让分析者的话语符合一套预先构想的解释矩阵或解释理论 (譬如在“译码式”的方法之中)，而是在于瓦解所有诸如此类的理论。解释远非是给分析者提供一则新的信息，而是应当仅仅服务于使分析者能够听到自己无意识地发送给其自身的信息。除了分析者有意识地想要传达的那些意义之外，他的言语还总是具有很多其他的意义。分析家则玩味分析者言语中的歧义性，从而使其显示出多重的意义。通常，让解释达到此种效果的最有效的方式，便是让解释本身也同样变得带有歧义。借由这样的方式来进行解释，分析家便把分析者的信息以其真正的、颠倒的形式送回给了分析者（见：交流[COMMUNICATION]).

‌‌‌‌　　因此，解释的提供并非是为了获得分析者的赞同，而仅仅是旨在当联想的流动变得堵塞之时能够使分析者继续言说下去的一种战术性策略。解释的价值并不在于其与现实的符合，而仅仅在于其产生某种效果的力量；因此，从与“事实”不相符合的意义上说，一则解释可能是不正确的，然而从拥有强大象征性效果的意义上说，这则解释是真实的 (E, 237).

‌‌‌‌　　拉康指出，为了以这样的方式来进行解释，分析家就必须完全从字面上 (àla lettre)来对待分析者的言语。也就是说，分析家的任务并不在于对分析者的“隐藏信息”获得某种想象性的直觉把握，而仅仅在于阅读分析者的话语，就仿佛它是一则文本，注意这一话语的那些形式特征，即那些重复其自身的能指 (S2,153)。因此，拉康便频频告诫“理解”的危险：“你理解得越少，你就倾听得越好。”(S2, l41)“理解”(英：understanding; 法：comprendre)对拉康而言具有一些消极的内涵，它隐含了仅仅试图使他人的言说符合一套预先形成的理论的这样一种倾听（见：E, 270: S2,103: S8,229-30)。为了尽量避免此种理解的危险，分析家在倾听的时候便必须“忘记他所知道的事情”(Ec, 349), 而且在提供解释的时候也必须做得“恰好仿佛我们对于理论全然无知一般”(Lacan, 1953b:227).

‌‌‌‌　　关于拉康如何着手“解释转移”这一复杂的问题，见：转移 (TRANSFERENCE)。

‌‌‌‌　　(interpretation)The role of the analyst in the treatment is twofold.First and foremost,hemust listen to the analysand,but he must also intervene by speaking to the analysand.Although the analyst's speech is characterised by many different kinds of speech act(asking questions,giving instructions,etc.),it is the offering of interpretations whichplays the most crucial and distinctive role in the treatment.Broadly speaking,the analystcan be said to offer an interpretation when he says something that subverts theanalysand's conscious 'everyday'way of looking at something.

‌‌‌‌　　Freud first began offering interpretations to his patients in order to help themremember an idea that had been repressed from memory. These interpretations wereeducated guesses about what the patients had omitted from their account of the eventswhich led up to the formation of their symptoms. For example, in one of the earliestinterpretations he recorded, Freud told one patient that she had not revealed all hermotives for the intense affection she showed towards her employer's children, and wenton to say;'I believe that really you are in love with your employer, the Director, thoughperhaps without being aware of it yourself (Freud, 1895d: SE II, 117). The purpose of theinterpretation was to help the patient become conscious of unconscious thoughts.

‌‌‌‌　　The model of interpretation was set down by Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud, 1900a); though only concerned explicitly with dreams, Freud's comments oninterpretation in this work apply equally to all the other formations of the unconscious (parapraxes, jokes, symptoms, etc.). In the second chapter of this work the psychoanalyticmethod of interpretation is distinguished from the 'decoding'method of interpretation bythe use of the method of free association: a psychoanalytic interpretation does not consistin attributing a meaning to a dream by referring to a pre-existing system of equivalencesbut by referring to the associations of the dreamer himself. It follows that the same imagewill mean very different things if dreamed by different people. Even when Freud latercame to recognise the existence of 'symbolism'in dreams (i.e.the fact that there aresome images which have fixed universal meanings in addition to their unique meaningfor the individual dreamer), he always maintained that interpretation should focusprimarily on the particular meaning and warned against 'overestimating the importanceof symbols in dream interpretation' (Freud, 1900a: SE V, 359-60).

‌‌‌‌　　Early on in the history of the psychoanalytic movement, interpretation rapidly came tobe the most important tool of the analyst, his primary means for achieving therapeuticeffects in the patient. Since symptoms were held to be the expression of a repressed idea, the interpretation was seen to cure the symptom by helping the patient become consciousof the idea. However, after the initial period in which the offering of interpretationsseemed to achieve remarkable effects, in the decade 1910-20 analysts began to noticethat their interpretations were becoming less effective. In particular, the symptom wouldpersist even after the analyst had offered exhaustive interpretations of it.

‌‌‌‌　　In order to explain this, analysts turned to the concept of RESISTANCE, arguing thatit is not sufficient simply to offer an interpretation of the unconscious meaning of thesymptom but that it is also necessary to get rid of the patient's resistance to becomingfully conscious of this meaning (see Strachey, 1934). Lacan, however, proposes adifferent explanation. He argues that the decreasing efficacy of interpretations after 1920was due to a 'closure'of the unconscious which the analysts themselves had provoked (S2,10-11; S8,390). Among other things, Lacan blames the increasing tendency of thefirst generation of analysts to base their interpretations more on symbolism (despite Freud's wamings to the contrary), thereby returning to the pre-psychoanalytic 'decoding'method of interpretation. Not only did this reduce interpretations to set formulas, but thepatients soon came to be able to predict exactly what the analyst would say about anyparticular symptom or association they produced (which, as Lacan wryly comments 'issurely the most annoying trick which can be played on a fortuneteller'; Ec, 462). Interpretations thus lacked both relevance and shock-value.

‌‌‌‌　　Other analysts before Lacan had recognised the problems caused by the fact thatpatients were increasingly knowledgeable of psychoanalytic theory. However, thesolution which they proposed for this problem was that 'too much knowledge on the partof the patient should be replaced by more knowledge on the part of the analyst' (Ferencziand Rank, 1925:61). In other words, they urged the analyst to elaborate even morecomplex theories in order to stay one step ahead of the patient. Lacan, however, proposesa different solution. What is needed, he argues, is not interpretations of ever-increasingcomplexity, but a different way of approaching interpretation altogether. Hence Lacancalls for a 'renewed technique of interpretation' (E, 82), one that challenges the basicassumptions underlying the classical psychoanalytic model of interpretation.

‌‌‌‌　　Classical interpretations generally took the form of attributing to a dream, a symptom, a parapraxis, or an association, a meaning not given to it by the patient. For example theinterpretation may be of the form 'What you really mean by this symptom is that youdesire x'. The fundamental assumption was that the interpretation unmasks a hiddenmeaning, the truth of which could be confirmed by the patient producing moreassociations. It is this assumption that Lacan challenges, arguing that analyticinterpretations should no longer aim at discovering a hidden meaning, but rather atdisrupting meaning;'Interpretation is directed not so much at "making sense"as towardsreducing the signifiers to their"non-sense"in order thereby to find the determinants of allthe subject's conduct' (811,212, my translation). Interpretation thus inverts therelationship between signifier and signified: instead of the normal production of meaning (signifier produces signified), interpretation works at the level of s to generate S: interpretation causes 'irreducible signifiers'to arise, which are non-sensical' (S11,250). Hence it is not a question, for Lacan, of fitting the analysand's discourse into apreconceived interpretive matrix or theory (as in the 'decoding'method), but ofdisrupting all such theories. Far from offering the analysand a new message, theinterpretation should serve merely to enable the analysand to hear the message he isunconsciously addressing to himself. The analysand's speech always has other meaningsapart from that which he consciously intends to convey. The analyst plays on theambiguity of the analysand's speech, bringing out its multiple meanings. Often the mosteffective way for the interpretation to achieve this is for it too to be ambiguous. Byinterpreting in this way, the analyst sends the analysand's message back to the analysandin its true, inverted form (see COMMUNICATION).

‌‌‌‌　　An interpretation is therefore not offered to gain the analysand's assent, but is simply atactical device aimed at enabling the analysand to continue speaking when the flow ofassocations has become blocked. The value of an interpretation does not lie in itscorrespondence with reality, but simply in its power to produce certain effects; aninterpretation may therefore be inexact, in the sense of not corresponding to the facts', but nevertheless true, in the sense of having powerful symbolic effects (see E, 237).

‌‌‌‌　　Lacan argues that in order to interpret in this way, the analyst must take theanalysand's speech absolutely literally (a la lettre). That is, the task of the analyst is notto achieve some imaginary intuitive grasp of the analysand's hidden message', butsimply to read the analysand's discourse as if it were a text, attending to the formalfeatures of this discourse, the signifiers that repeat themselves (S2,153). Hence Lacan'sfrequent warnings of the dangers of 'understanding';'the less you understand, the betteryou listen' (S2,141). Understanding (comprendre) has negative connotations for Lacan, implying a kind of listening that seeks only to fit the other's speech into a preformedtheory (see E, 270; S2,103; S8,229-30). In order to do avoid this, the analyst, must'forget what he knows'when listening (Ec, 349) and when offering interpretations mustdo so 'exactly as if we were completely ignorant of theory' (Lacan, 1953b:227).

‌‌‌‌　　On the complex question of Lacan's approach to 'interpreting the transference', seeTRANSFERENCE.