Interpretation as a Carrier of Affect

Abstract

In the interpretation, the affective part of the communication is fundamental. In this article, sufferance, surprise, and seduction are closely examined in the perspective of an exchange in the analyst’s and the analysand’s interactions, as clinical vignettes (from the analytic practice of André Haynal) illustrate.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Translated by Sarah Fuchs, NYC.

Notes

¹ As opposed to the perspective of “listening only to verbal expressions” as J. Lacan (1966, p. 11) advocates, nonverbal communication, such as attitudes and tone of voice, also tremendously enrich analytic communication.

² Freud spoke of this as well; his repeated return to this word (Guttman and Parrish, 1995) suggests that he used it as a “concept” (pp. 4730–4761), a fixed point to contribute to his understanding.

³ See, for example, the debates about masturbation in the Wednesday Society (cf. Freud, 1912).

⁴ On this subject, we have also the direct witness of Michael Balint, who wrote: “During the next few years the three of us were fully engaged in collecting, editing and translating the material for Volumes 3 and 4 of the Bausteine [the German Collective Papers of Ferenczi]. Freud, of course, was not only informed about our plan [to publish it] but was sent all the hitherto unpublished material. It can be stated that he followed our work with interest, did not object to any part of the text proposed by us; on the contrary, he expressed his admiration for Ferenczi’s ideas, until then unknown to him.” (Balint, cited in Ferenczi, 1932, p. 219).

⁵ The original text: “die Indifferenz, die man sich durch die Niederhaltung der Gegenübertragung erworben hat, nicht verleugnen” (. . . we ought not to give up the neutrality towards the patient which we have acquired through keeping the countertransference in check; Freud, 1915, p. 164).

⁶ This idea may precede the Kohutian one of ‘selfobject.’

⁷ Much more striking in the original text: “Takt ist Einfühlungsvermögen” (Ferenczi, 1924; Bausteine III, p. 238).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

André E. Haynal

André E. Haynal, M.D., psychoanalyst, former President of the Swiss Psychoanalytic Society, recipient of the Sigourney Award for his life work. He is supervising editor of the Freud/Ferenczi Correspondence; author of twelve books (orig. in French, the last one Disappearing and Reviving: Sándor Ferenczi in the History of Psychoanalysis, Karnac, London) and of over 400 publications.

Veronique D. Haynal

Véronique D. Haynal, M.A., psychoanalytic psychotherapist, life coach, researcher in nonverbal communication, formerly at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.