Putting Laplanche’s “Originary Hermeneut” in a Relational Context: A Clinical Illustration

In her paper, Ashtor presents a compelling discussion of Laplanche’s significant contributions to metapsychology and offers a reformulation of his “drive to translate” in terms of affect and the infant’s inborn need for affect regulation. In response, this discussion examines Laplanche’s conceptualization of the patient as the “originary hermeneut” and his one-person model of translation from a relational psychoanalytic perspective. Using a clinical example, the role of the integration of affect in translation is illustrated. The patient’s hermeneutical movement, or translation of enigmatic implantations is viewed as emergent from intersubjective processes within the analytic field, constructed from the complex interplay of untranslated excess and the mutual influence afforded by the analytic relationship.