The notion of “material” and the prospective temporal aspect of the interpretation

Abstract

The preconcepts implicit in the notion of “material” invite us in analytic work to a retrospective attitude — directed towards the patient’s past. This is due to a remnant in the theory of the analytical technique of the first theory of pathogenic memories and of
the interpretation considered as a cathartic factor. According to this line of thought we consider that the progress of psychoanalysis generally speaking, and of each analysis in particular, should consist in “deepening” on the chronological level, that is to say in
re-discovering “layers” of mental life further and further back in time, considered as fundamental data which have their meaning per se and generate and explain ulterior layers or phases. This mental attitude seems to us to come into contradiction with the basis of the technique of analysis, that is interpretation, the end of which lies essentially in the patient’s future. In order to avoid this contradiction and make our technique and our theory agree, we think it necessary to modify our concept of “material” and the
corresponding mental attitude in the analyst. The material thus appears as the whole of the situations experienced by he patient, in their prospective dimension of intentionality and anticipation as well as in their retrospective dimension. Analysis does not consist
essentially in re-discovering (although this rediscovery is a part of it), but in re-building up or creating and inventing.
Though neurosis and conflict appear, in one of their aspects, as a blockage or splitting of temporality, though interpretation always has in fact a prospective temporal aspect, tending to bring about a dialectic “retournement” between the past, the present
transferential-contratransferential field and the future perspectives (making conscious the weight of destiny and overwhelming it at the same time through the process of insight), the analytical technique aims at an opening of the bi-personal field of the analytic situation, that is to say at the transformation of the neurotic circle into a dilemma and a choice between various possibilities.
The modification of our mental attitude —if really necessary— should manifest itself in our way of facing and stating the interpretation, including within it the wholeness of the temporal field, be it blocked or split, on the way to opening, or opened already. All this gives a special importance to a certain kind of interpretations which we make in fact (without pretending of course that ah interpretations should adjust themselves to that kind): the interpretations of a global situation, including the
prospective temporal aspects of this situation. This temporal-prospective aspect seems to me to be implicit in Stratchey’s concept of “mutative interpretation” (a mutation is always made towards something). May be the above considerations will enable us to
understand better the “mutative” aspect of some interpretations, and put ourselves more plainly into the picture of what the analytical process is: the discovery of the patient by himself, the discovery of the patient by ourselves and, may be, the discovery of
ourselves through our discovery in common with the patient.