Dreamwork beyond psychoanalysis

Abstract

Dr. Montague Ullman's work with dream groups is the main subject of this paper. After detailing his method there follows an account of the author's experience in a dream workshop run by Dr. Ullman. The theoretical issues involved in this work are discussed, particularly the ideas of Trigant Burrow, an early American analyst who believed in species connectedness, and David Bohm's theory of implicate order. Dr. Ullman's intention to return to the healing process in dreams to ordinary people is connected with the author's paper “Thoughts on the Healing Process.” The implications for psychoanalysis of these holistic ideas are considered.     

Telling Dreams and Transference: The Interactional Function of Dreams as Free Associations

Since Freud's Dream Interpretation and his additional writings on the analysis of dreams, the technique of handling a dream report within the analytic session has remained nearly unchanged. It is characterised by dream-centred associations and their interpretation in regard to dream content and to transference. This approach constitutes an alien element within contemporary interactional psychoanalytic technique and tends to provoke resistances in the analytic dialogue. This article stresses the function of dream reporting during the session with respect to the interactional process. It is concluded that sufficient attention should be given to interactional analysis of dream reporting in accordance with the questions: Why does the patient at this point of the process tell a dream, and why does he tell this very dream instead of another?     

Young Freud's linkage with Persia

Abstract

Sigmund Freud's hands helped to mutilate a volume containing a series of “colored plates” like the one replicated in Figure 1 in the text. As a young adult, his personal library included a fairytale whose German text was entitled Die Träumleiter: Ein Marchen. No one has yet been able to authenticate the author's identity beyond the following imprint: “S. Andreas (1832).” The poetic play centers upon a celestial meeting featuring Shakespeare, Goethe, and Dschami. It has been translated into English (The dream ladder: A fairy tale), but still awaits a psychoanalytically informed exegesis.     

Riding the Currents

Abstract

The overlapping, numinous roles of child therapist and mother demand focused compassion, connection and humility. Spiritual dimensions of Intention, Balance, and Integrity are examined as vehicles for “riding the currents” of energy available for nurturing and healing tasks. Archetypal and religious sources of passion and perspective are explored and applied to anecdotal family, dream and case materials. The psychoanalytic concept of a mother's reverie is extended to address a mother's role in supporting growth by mediating between the personal and the Universal. Multiple roles of offering and receiving personal and professional nurturance suggest approaches to replacing depletion with replenishment.     

Self-representing dreams

SUMMARY

Certain dreams are particularly striking for the way they represent themselves and the manner in which they are told within a psychotherapeutic relationship. Within such a dream is contained a picture of the dream's function and significance as part of the transaction between patient and psychotherapist. This phenomenon illustrates the nature and function of unconscious phantasy, the relations that hold between phantasy and mechanisms of defence, and the manifestations of phantasy within the transference.

Three examples are given of self-representing dreams which have been reported and re-enacted by trainee psychiatrists in psychotherapy supervision.     

Narrative Derivatives of Alpha Elements: Clinical Implications

The author considers both the psychoanalytic field and the ways in which the characters of a psychoanalytic session can be understood. He then develops one of Bion's ideas, the dream in the waking state, by isolating the derivatives of such dreams or rather the alpha elements they consist of. The author implies a theory of technique which takes account of all the signals "the bi-personal field" gives the analyst about the functioning of the analytic couple by means of "narrative derivatives". This enables continual changes to be made in interpretation     

“sexuality and death” in freud's discovery of sexual aetiology

Abstract

The present study focuses on Freud's discovery of sexual aetiology in the period from his studies in Paris and Berlin (1885–86) to self-analysis (1897). The study gives a reassessment of both the link and the break between Freud's early works and the contemporary medical views and splits concerning sexual aetiology, which is relevant for the understanding of Freud's later developments. Freud's initial aversion toward sexual aetiology is investigated, and a significant connection between sexuality and death is found in the medical practice of female circumcision and castration in the treatment of hysteria. Finally, the relevance of the tabooed surgical operations is discussed in relation to a series of important moments for the birth of psychoanalysis (the collaboration with Fliess and the operation on Emma Eckstein, the Irma dream, the seduction theory and its abandonment, and the emergence in Freud of the memory of the death of little Julius as the “germ of guilt”).     

Intentionality Analysis and the Problem of Self and Other

Dennett recounts an alarm clock dream which he experienced as taking a long time even though the alarm presumably sounded for only a short time. His explanation of this paradoxical behavior of time in dreams is that there actually is no dream experience but that unexperienced dreams are composed directly into memory banks and are subsequently played back on awakening. I critique Dennett's theory of dreams in Heideggerian terms on the grounds that he takes temporality in a common-sense superficial way. I review Heidegger's theory of time and using Dennett's own dream show that “temporality temporalizes itself' in dreams too as a free production of dreaming Dasein. Dream time is what dreaming temporality produces whatever the clocks of waking show, and is entirely consistent with authentic dream experience. An appreciation of the process of dreaming temporality temporalizing itself supports Heidegger's concept of temporality as an a priori of Dasein's Being.     

Dreaming woman: Image,place, and the aesthetics of exile

Looking closely at an Argentine dream interpretation column published in a popular women's magazine from 1948 to 1951, this article examines the role of the dream image in shaping psychoanalytic discourse on femininity and national identity. The column, ‘Psychoanalysis Will Help You,’ emerged during Juan Domingo Perón's first presidency, featuring verbal interpretations written under the pen name ‘Richard Rest,’ as well as surreal photomontages by Grete Stern, a German‐born, Bauhaus‐trained photographer living in exile since 1936. While the column's Jungian text encourages readers’ adaptation to the external reality of their social situation, Stern's droll images emphasize the disjuncture between subject and environment, exposing tensions between the experience of exile and the Peronist mission to consolidate an Argentine national identity. Experimenting formally with European avant‐garde techniques, Stern presents femininity and nation as conflictive imaginary configurations. This theme resurfaces at the 2013 Venice Biennale, where Nicola Costantino's multimedia installation Eva – Argentina: A Contemporary Metaphor was exhibited alongside Carl Jung's Red Book. Formal contrasts between Stern's use of photomontage, Costantino's projection technique, and Jung's theory of mandala symbolism indicate the divergent ways in which their artwork posits the therapeutic function of the dream image, as well as the role of aesthetic production in psychoanalytic care.     

The countertransference dream1

Can the analyst's night‐dream about his patient be considered as a manifestation of countertransference‐and, if so, under what conditions? In what way can such a dream represent more than just the disguised fulfillment of a repressed wish of the analyst? Is there not a risk of the analyst unconsciously taking up and ‘using’ the content of a session or other elements coming from the analytic situation for his own psychic reasons? The author, closely following Freud's dream theory, shows the mechanisms which can allow us to use the dream content in the analytical situation: preserved from the secondary processes of conscious thinking, other fantasies and affects than in the waking state can emerge in dream thought, following an ‘unconscious perception’. After examining the countertransference elements of Freud's dream, ‘Irma's injection’, which leads off The interpretation of dreams, the author presents a dream of her own about a patient and its value for understanding affects and representations which had hitherto remained unrepresented.     

Looking a Hundred Years Back: Remarks on the Concept of "Wishing" in Psychoanalysis

While the concepts of "wish" and "wish fulfillment" have indeed remained central since the start of classical psychoanalysis, they are only weakly anchored both in theory and practice. It has become common today for psychoanalysts to use the term "to wish" in the sense of "to want" or "to intend." As a first step, it will be emphasized that "wish" should not be constructed along the lines of "intention." An examination of the relationship of "wish" to "wish fulfillment" is then followed by an evaluation of its practical significance for psychoanalysis and for our understanding of mental life in a general sense. Turning to an example dream sequence, we will arrive at the psychoanalytic core of the issue: the assumption of hidden, non-obvious, non-recognizable wish fulfillment scenarios. At this point in the discussion, a method of access will be sketched out - the dramaturgical approach - that, although it makes use of the idea of free association, does so in a manner that diverges from Freud's original recommendation.     

GRADIVA: FREUD,FETISHISM, AND POMPEIAN FANTASY

This paper is a critical reconsideration of Freud's analysis (1907) of Wilhelm Jensen's novella Gradiva: A Pompeian Fantasy (1903). Freud's interest was aroused by the parallels between Jensen's presentation of dreams and Freud's model of dream formation just published in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Freud also acclaims Jensen's presentation of the formation and “cure” of his protagonist's delusion about a marble bas‐relief of a woman walking. This paper argues for the centrality of the phenomenon of fetishism, briefly considered but excluded from Freud's analysis. The fantasy of Gradiva as “the necessary conditions for loving” (Freud 1910, pp. 165–166) is also a key thesis of the essay, which makes use of the newly translated Freud–Jensen correspondence contained in this article's Appendix.     

The Role of the Third Chakra in the Psychology of Terrorism

Abstract

In a recent dream I am with my German childhood girl friend. We are in a German town. There is an ominous feeling in the air. I have just learned that a young Jewish man who has lost his reason is running through town, seeking murderous revenge for the crimes of the Nazi Holocaust, committed almost forty years ago. Then I see lying on the sidewalk the black, charred body of a young man, a violin near his head. I know at once that this is the first victim of the young Jew's revenge, a horrible reminder of the crimes of the Nazi regime.

My girl friend buries her head on my shoulder and cries: “Will the past ever stay in the past?” I stroke her hair as I answer, “It is this poor young Jew's way of reminding us of our collective guilt.”     

The issue of human existence as represented in dreaming: A new Daseinsanalytic interpretation of the meaning of dreams

Abstract

Dreams are associated with those issues of our waking life which preoccupy us emotionally. According to our Daseinsanalytic view, however, the issue that concerns us while dreaming is actually not the concrete worrying matter itself, but its existential dimension. This view is based on Martin Heidegger's concept of human being as that being to which its own being is an issue. It means that all feeling and understanding dealing with concrete issues concurrently refer to fundamental issues of our existence. Dreaming though, we are focused entirely on the fundamental aspects. Dreams show the very individual and specific struggle of the dreamer with certain conditions of human life, which he or she is unable or unwilling to accept because they seem too difficult to endure. I want to demonstrate this method of interpretation on a dream of a depressive patient. The example illustrates that the concerns of dreaming are rooted in and refer to an existential dilemma that is hidden in the concrete difficulties of waking life and represented in the concrete dream events. In addition, it gives us the opportunity to inquire into the specificity of the fundamental dilemma of a personality with a “depressive view” of the world.     

Tell Us a Story from Before We Can Remember: Gnostic Reflections on Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life

Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life can be considered in relation to the pansophic tradition of Western spirituality, especially Gnosticism. Malick explores humankind in a cosmic ambit that is imaginal, holistic, and deeply reverential, recalling the Gnostics’ use of mythopoesis in elaborating and evoking their revelatory experiences. This is exemplified by a haunting soprano voice within the void that is conspicuously Sophianic.

Jung's observation that psychology (like Malik's film) is concerned with an act of seeing, not the construction of new religious truths, invites reference to the roots of perception suggested by the visionary experience of a child, the initiatory dream of a young woman, and the archetypal correspondence of such constellations to the germinal stars–scintillae motif in Gnostic creation mythology, alchemy, and the pansophic tradition generally.     

Children's active play imagery

ObjectiveThe purpose of the present study was to examine how children's use of imagery in their active play can facilitate Deci and Ryan's (2002) three basic psychological needs (i.e., competence, relatedness, and autonomy) in their active play. A secondary purpose was to examine the content of children's mental images associated with their active play.DesignFocus Groups.MethodOne hundred and four participants (male and female) aged 7–14 years old were recruited from various summer camps.ResultsThe results indicated children use active play imagery and their use of imagery facilitates the satisfaction of the three basic needs (i.e., imagery → behaviour → need satisfaction). With respect to autonomy, children imaged activities that are their favourite, enjoyable, and they do often. For relatedness they imaged friends, family, and others (e.g., professional athletes), while for competence they imaged themselves being good at the activity. Age and gender differences emerged for relatedness and competence. Furthermore, the content of children's images included when participants imaged as well as the speed of their images (i.e., slow motion, real time, or fast).ConclusionThese findings may enable the development of imagery interventions to increase children's motivation to be physically active.     

Grant Me the Knowledge of What I Want Because All I Know Is That I Want: A Lacanian View of Hysteria

ABSTRACT

Freud’s work with hysterics led him to the discovery of the unconscious and the founding of psychoanalysis. The dream of the beautiful butcher’s wife, one of Freud’s patients, is examined following Lacan’s added insights that give full credit to his well known statement: “The unconscious is structured like a language.” Three basic identifications are presented by Lacanian analysis and I add a clinical vignette that exemplifies my work in the treatment of a couple.     

Psychology of Dreams

Abstract

This article describes the essential aspects of a creative, experiential course in dream interpretation for psychology and counseling students. Such a course offers counselor educators an opportunity to develop basic interviewing and advanced processing techniques in their students while facilitating greater self-exploration and improved relational functioning. The authors measured students' self-reported change in their overall functioning and satisfaction with self, others, and their future. Finally, practicing counselors may find the techniques outlined in this article useful in their own work with clients.     

The Embodied Couple

SUMMARY

Herein is described the use of a specific physical posture for couples to assume for the purpose of assessing the dynamics of their relationship. Its careful and artful use creates a microcosm of the couple's interactive style, revealing significant behaviors and feelings in the therapist's presence.     

Personality Judgment at Zero Acquaintance: Agreement,Assumed Similarity,and Implicit Simplicity

Measures of frequency of dream recall for 47 Ss and of amount of dreaming for 18 Ss, as determined by the Dement-Kleitman method, were available as part of a larger investigation of the influence of personality factors on dream recall. Rorschach Test indices obtained from these Ss were intercorrelated among themselves and correlated with the appropriate dream variable in order to assess the presumed affinity of dream phenomena and Rorschach response processes. The results were: (1) indices of fantasy predominance correlated positively with both amount of dreaming and frequency of dream recall; (2) indices of associative productivity correlated positively with frequency of dream recall; (3) an index of introspective constriction correlated negatively with frequency of dream recall. Further exploration of this area seems promising.