ABSTRACT
Of all the instruments that comprise the psychotherapist's armoury, there are three that have distinct forms and uses: information, clarification and interpretation. These three tools are essentially one; but it is advisable to distinguish between them, more on the basis of their range than their characteristics. Psychoanalytic method, the theory and the ethics, converge in the concept of interpretation. The interpretation must be opportune; it must provide an acceptable minimum degree of opportunity. Lowenstein says, in short, that interpretation is information given to the patient, which refers to the patient and provokes changes that lead to insight. The interpretation, then, can be considered as a scientific proposition, a declarative sentence, a hypothesis that can be justified or refuted, and this separates it completely from the primary delusional experience. As a new connection of meaning, the interpretation informs and gives the analysand the means of organizing a new way of thinking and of changing his point of view.
