title: The misunderstanding (le malentendu).
abstract: The idea that misunderstanding is simply a problem in both the psychoanalytic situation, between analyst and patient, and in translation between one language and another, is turned on its head in this paper. Originally written in French, this paper addresses both Francophone and Anglophone psychoanalytic communities in the realization that misunderstanding is the ground from which we start in analysis. The author portrays two patients who illustrate that, even when analyst and patient speak the same language, the patient may speak in a style that the analyst must first learn to hear as a kind of dialect, to hear his own misunderstanding, in order for meaning to appear.
authors.affiliation: andre.jac@wanadoo.fr
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: André
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition; D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy; D012938:Social Perception