Language and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis

Consider a poem as the literary critic reads it; consider the language of an analysand as the psychoanalyst hears it. The tasks of the professionals are similar: to interpret the linguistic, symbolic data at hand. In Language and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis, Marshall Edelson explores the linguistics of Chomsky, showing the congruence between Chomsky and Freud, and comparing linguistic interpretations in the psychoanalytic situation with interpretations of a Bach prelude and Wallace Stevens's poem "The Snow Man."

Marshall Edelson is professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, director of education in the Yale department of psychiatry, and director of research in the outpatient division of Connecticut Mental Health Center. His many books and articles include Sociotherapy and Psychotherapy and Hypothesis and Evidence in Psychoanalysis, both published by the University of Chicago Press.