This document summarizes Freud's 1937-38 attempt to differentiate between the terms "interpretation" and "construction" in psychoanalysis. Freud needed a term to help organize the large amounts of material from patient free association. He began using "interpretation" to refer to what he was trying to make sense of in a dream or session, while "construction" referred to the overall historical narrative of the patient's life plotted in terms of cause and effect. Constructions were important for dealing with patient infantile amnesia and reconstructed elements like primal scenes that may not be fully conscious. Freud drew parallels between psychoanalysis and archaeology, viewing psychoanalysis as excavating different unconscious levels over time.