ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews specific hermeneutic debate concerning the nature of understanding, a debate in which the psychoanalytic model was used as an example. It describes some contemporary thoughts on the psychoanalytical relationship, the curative factors pertaining to it, and the status of object and reality in psychoanalysis. The chapter explores the relevance of hermeneutics for the explication and understanding of these current psychoanalytical ideas, as well as to examine what kind of hermeneutics these ideas imply. While the transference illusion is part of the transferential relationship, a condition of the developmental relationship is a "developmental" illusion. The metaphorical movement of the developmental relationship is connected to the "developmental illusion". Ricoeur's work forms part of a broader reflection on the interpretation of symbols, while Habermas saw in psychoanalysis a model for the emancipation of self-understanding, applicable also in the social sphere. Ricoeur turned to the metaphor after having investigated the symbol.
