Firstly the article identifies an interpretative function in the conceptualization of the psychic apparatus, by Freud. This function is best explained in "The Interpretation of Dreams". These are understood to operate in their turn the same interpretative function as the apparatus. Secondly it is argued that since 1900 Freud conceptualizes a limit and an exception in the function of dream-interpretation. However, he localizes these limits in two different explanations of the apparatus. Lacan introduces a new way of understanding the matter by affirming that the limits are comprehended in one and the same explanation of the functioning of the apparatus. A moment of impossibility which is present in all interpretations is examined in view of its clinical consequences, since it points to a necessary analytical act. This is the intervention that makes it possible for the analytical subject to exist.
Interpretative function; Limits of interpretation; Analytical act