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Language and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis

Consider a poem as the literary critic reads it; consider the language of an analysand as the psychoanalyst hears it. The tasks of the professionals are similar: to interpret the linguistic, symbolic data at hand. In Language and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis, Marshall Edelson explores the linguistics of Chomsky, showing the congruence between Chomsky and Freud, and comparing linguistic interpretations in the psychoanalytic situation with interpretations of a Bach prelude and Wallace Stevens’s poem "The Snow Man."

260 pages | 5-1/4 x 8 | © 1984

Psychology: General Psychology

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Part One: Prolegomena to a Theory of Interpretation
1. The Psychoanalyst Listens
2. The Distinguishing Characteristics of Interpretation
3. Interpretation and Explanation in Psychoanalysis
4. Implications, Hypotheses, and Questions
Part Two: Psychoanalysis and Language
5. Interpretation and Linguistic Competence
6. The Meanings of "Meaning"
7. The Interpretation of Transformation
8. The Interpretation of Deviance
Part Three: Three Intrepretations of a Poem as a Linguistic Object
9. Psychoanalysis and Literature
10. The Syntax of "The Snow Man": Reconstructing Deep from Surface Structures
11. The Sense of "The Snow Man": Deviance and Ambiguity
12. The Sound of "The Snow Man": Meanings in the Music of Language
Bibliography
Index

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