Kapsambelis, Vassilis
Interpreting Delusion: Sense and Non-sense
- 2013.
40
A distinction must be made between delusion and hallucinations that are part of oneiric activity, which can be understood on the model of the dream, and those that belong to chronic psychoses. In the latter, delusion and hallucinations present a current object–an object of perception that remains totally alien to the subject–while choosing it as an object of cathexis; they materialise the psychotic patient’s difficulty in taking account of the object’s otherness and, therefore, in conceiving of himself as an object of the other’s desire. In these situations, interpretation of delusion is understood as an interpretation that concerns the object rather than the subject, with the therapist standing in for that object; this can lead to misunderstandings that endanger the therapeutic relationship.