In the Blink of an Eye: The Minimalist Interpretation

In this paper, the author discusses what she terms “the minimalist interpretation,” whereby the analyst proposes a brief, succinct interpretation. As the psychic truth is elusive and is a retrospective formulation of past experience, she suggests that the required interpretation frequently occurs in the blink of an eye, akin to a Haiku poem. The author examines the possibility of experiencing the psychic truth from a Bionian perspective, with an affinity to Haiku poetry and with references to Freud’s and Bion’s respective concepts of the caesura. This directly relates to the immanent “cleft tongue” (Amir, 2013), which opens up in therapy at the moment when truth is formulated into words and interpretation. It is the analyst’s ability to process psychic experiences into alpha elements that enables the patient to experience a truthful encounter with himself together with the return of the psychic movement. This encounter, much like a Haiku poem, encapsulates the existing and the absent, summoning a humbling and momentary contact with the psychic truth and its ever-changing essence.