"Symbolism versus association: my question is, do these amount to parallel, or even complementary methods, as Freud wished? Or are we dealing rather with two antagonistic vectors, precisely those of anti-hermeneutics and hermeneutics?" (8)."I will insist once again on the fact that the original discovery of Freud is that of a method.
"This method is constantly defined as analytical, associative-dissociative; "free association" (freie Assoziation) or "freely occurring ideas" (freie Einfalle) are only the means employed for the dissociation of all proposed meaning. An analytical method, then; one that is supposed to conform to the object it posits - the 'representation' termed 'unconscious'" (7)"psychoanalysis is not the system of stereotypical interpretations to which it is too often reduced by certain of its adepts, to the great advantage of its detractors, who have things made very easy for them" (8)YES!
Laplanche offers a psychoanalytic anti-hermeneutic theory. “I thus come back to the general problem of hermeneutics, to state, within the framework of the general theory of seduction, a fundamental proposition: the only genuine, originary hermeneutics is the human being” (10). Laplanche dubs his psychoanalytic anti-hermeneutics as the “theory of seduction.” While LaPlanche offers an interesting engagement with hermeneutics, I found myself confused by what his theory truly means. What does a general theory of seduction entail?
“Many of Freud's statements run counter to the inclusion of his work in hermeneutics. I have insisted, for a long time, on the absolute priority given to method.”“Before being identified as a clinical practice or a theory, psychoanalysis is first defined as 'a procedure for the investigation of psychical processes, which are otherwise hardly accessible'.
