The Dream Discourse Today

The Dream Discourse Today offers an unrivalled synoptic view of key American, British and French papers on dream analysis in clinical practice. The purpose of the book is to show the reader different, well articulated perspectives, place them in historical context, and invite comparative reading. The cumulative effect of both papers and introductions is to leave the reader with an informed sense of the range of perspectives and a confidence in the continued relevance of dream analysis to practice, as some striking convergences in the implications of thinking drawn from very different approaches becomes clear. The first paper by Masud Khan, provides an orientation to the subject, developing the theme of the relationship between the psychoanalytic understanding of dream formation and the psychoanalytic situation itself. This paper hints at the growing problematic in dream interpretation - the necessity to focus on the function of the dream, the patient's use of the dream life, and the potential perversion of the dream in the psychic economy of the more disturbed patient.Virtually all the papers in the third section of the book look at this problem, most giving clinical material to illustrate the correspondence between a patient's emotional growth within analysis and the simultaneous evolution of his or her relationship to dream life. Contributions from more classical analysts tackle first, the displacement of the dream within the context of analysis from its position as the "royal road" to the understanding of the unconscious mind. The debate between Brenner and Greenson explicitly addresses this subject, arguing the gains or losses from this historical evolution. The other papers from the perspective of ego and self psychology explore the meaningfulness of manifest content, aspects of the dream which Freud approached with scepticism, but which are today regularly used in psychoanalysis. The Dream Discourse Today is the first historical and theoretical survey of its subject and the classic nature of the papers it includes will make it a first-class work of reference for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists of all schools, whether in practice or still training.It should be of especial interest to those who teach courses on the theory of technique, since the place of dream analysis is almost certain to be one of the central topics in such courses.