Psychiatry and psychotherapy are primarily interpretive practices. In a clinical encounter, both parties are called upon to interpret signs, symptoms, and anything else that appears and to communicate both the meaningful and the incomprehensible. Ultimately, issues of interpretation are about knowledge and despair, diagnosing despair, and treating it.
The studies in this collection examine interpretation from a historical, methodological, and therapeutic perspective, as well as the significant contribution of philosophy and theology to the interpretive issues in psychiatry and psychotherapy.