[Hermeneutic aspect of analytically oriented (short-term) psychotherapies]

The present paper describes the experience of the "significance" a crisis or psychic disorder can have in the context of analytical (short-term) psychotherapy as a temporal and spatial revelation of inner world by means of--unelaborated--projective and introjective processes. This proceeding is called "hermeneutic" because firstly, a part of the whole, for example a symptom, a phantasy or any personal expression is to be understood in the "here and now" of the therapeutic "Sprachspiel" (Wittgenstein). Secondly, the hermeneutic understanding helps to open the "transitional space" (Winnicott) where the significance which is formed in the listener's imagination responds to the speaker and changes his conception in a continuous--frequently unconscious--dialogic exchange. Hence the "mere past that happened" gains significance in actual understanding. Thus hermeneutics is to be considered both as a methodology of the Humanities and as an art to participate experientially in the manifestations of human life. The therapeutic encounter can be concluded when patient and therapist are sure that the patient can continue to develop the contact to "significant others" and to himself in his inner world without the presence of the therapist.