ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author presents a semiotic interpretation of intersubjectivity in psychotherapeutic practice. He reviews some fundamentals of semiotic theory, before describing how analysts can apply the concepts to ordinary human interactions, including early parent–child communications and psychoanalysis. Moreover, listening to the words themselves rather than imagining their meaning can help the couple avoid re-enactment of a fantasy. The author uses clinical vignettes to illustrate this point. He describes Lacan’s early paper on the “Function and Field of Speech”, which makes the argument for a speech-based theory of psychoanalysis. An analyst may attribute the transference to his patient’s distortions or projections, but interpreting in this way basically reinforces his participation in the dyad and perpetuates the interaction. Kernberg contributed a useful alternative technique to transference interpretation based on his model of an internalized object relationship in which a patient alternates between reciprocal roles that can be demonstrated to him.
