ABSTRACT
The psychoanalytic method is inextricably linked to a theoretical corpus that, on the basis of clinical data, attempts to explore the fundamental structure of the human mind and, above all, the forces involved in it. Psychoanalytic literature is a reflection of how the experience has been worked over and subsequently integrated and is an attempt at organizing, with the help of conceptual categories, that understanding in a communicable way. Depending on the patient's mental structure and the psychoanalyst's experience and theoretical choices, there can be psychotherapy with the patient lying down on the couch five times a week or psychoanalysis with patient and analyst facing each other. Psychoanalysis as a body of scientific knowledge and the practice that derives from it are inextricably bound together and in constant interaction. The chapter then examines the question of virtual interpretation. Interpretation reveals the modes of defensive conflict and identifies the wish that is expressed by every product of the unconscious.
