Abstract

Psychoanalysis, whether Freudian or Jungian, promises an increase in self-understanding that leads to the subjective experience of a relief of symptoms. In this sense, "Who am I?" is the fundamental question from the analysand's perspective. How this question is answered depends on the kinds of interpretations that psychoanalysis may make and the processes of interpretive construction that the analysand can render in response to these . In order to discuss psychoanalysis from a hermeneutical perspective, I rely on the work of Paul Ricoeur. He furnishes me with a basis for conceiving human experience in the framework of interpretation and self-understanding through discussion of the relationships among symbolic, narrative, and explanatory discourses. Each of these levels of discourse is critical and psychoanalytic interpretation. By discussing them in a more general way in Ricoeur's thought, I establish the groundwork for a parallel discussion in my examination of psychoanalysis. ;There are three specific problems explored in this dissertation. First, there is a need to unite Ricoeur's recent concentration on narratives to his earlier hermeneutic therory. Ricoeur has not published a comprehensive theory of interpretation which includes a thoroughgoing presentation of the relationship of dialectical hermeneutics and narrative theory. It is the narrative element which Ricoeur has added to his own interpretation theory which significantly develops the relationship between psychoanalysis and hermeneutics. ;Ricoeur's work on Freud was completed as he was developing his theory of dialectical hermeneutics. By combining the arguments he makes in relation to Freud with the conclusions I make about more recent Ricoeurian concepts of hermeneutics and narratives, I show a need for a more complex narrative structure for psychology than Freudianism allows. I join the dialectical hermeneutics proposed by Ricoeur to the need for a dialectic within psychoanalytic theory itself. Ricoeurian hermeneutics offers a system which organizes and transforms conflicts between Freudian and Jungian approaches. The creation of a dialectic involves a recognition of the need for a psychoanalytic hermeneutic which can account for the foundations of psychic life in nature and the aspirations of psychic life in spirit and imagination. ;The third problem is to show the relationship between the dialectical approach to psychological theory and the process of therapy itself. This relationship is imporant to both theory and therapy; psychoanalytic theory evolves out of and is ultimately corroborated by therapy, while therapy is structured by guiding theoretical principles. This circularity is not vicious, but supportive of both ends of the process. What is most significant, however, is that analysis itself promotes the integration of theory and therapy within the process of generating a life-story or narrative of the analysand. In this way theoretical explanation becomes the lived story of the analysand. A commitment to this kind of grounding of knowledge in life belongs to both Ricoeurian hermeneutics and psychoanalysis as a shared guest. ;Taken together, these investigations allow me to conclude that a dialectic between Freudianism and Jungianism is possible and theoretically desirable when the modality of the dialectic becomes the generation of a comprehensive therapeutic life-story of the analysand.