On Interpretative Experiences: Unconcious-to-Unconcious Communication Through Reverie, Language, and the Setting

Interpretation has been looked upon for decades as the analyst's central tool to promote transformation, and it was intended as a synonym for making the unconscious conscious. Nowadays, work with patients with unrepresented mental areas has become more common and the classical conceptualizations require broadening. Reflecting and retrieving the original acceptations of Freud's word Deutung, we suggest the existence of "unconscious-to-unconscious" communications that we shall call "interpretative experiences," which can promote transformation through nonverbal communicative modes, thus getting in touch with more primitive mental functioning. Drawing on case material, we discuss the transformative function of reverie, language, and the setting within the framework of the post-Kleinian and French psychoanalytic model.