ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud’s definition articulates a dimension of research devoted to unconscious processes of the mind; a practical-clinical as well as research-guided dimension of therapy; and a theoretical dimension, meaning psychoanalysis has ever since been aiming for a general theory of the mind, not merely a theory of psychopathology. Regardless of some degrees of plurality among current developments of these three dimensions (research, therapy, and theory) within contemporary psychoanalysis, the threefold approach to knowledge is constantly pursued. As early as 1965, Paul Ricoeur’s Freud and Philosophy. An Essay on Interpretation attempted to reformulate psychoanalysis both in terms of scientific psychology such as behaviorisms as well as in terms of phenomenology. This chapter focuses on Ricoeur’s tentative approach to the psychoanalytic situation through the phenomenological experience, an “experience that is deliberately philosophical and reflective”. The psychoanalytic clinical method provides a systematic exploration of living subjective experience and is a source of clinical data on the mind.
