Traumatic Situations or Wish Fullfilment?: Angel Garma: The Psychoanalysis of Dreams. With an Introduction by Bertram D. Lewin. Chicago:  Quadrangle Books 1966,  242 pp.

This is the first English translation of Garma's book which has been regarded as a classic in Latin America.

Garma's perceptive study offers two contributions. The first five chapters present a clear outline of dream interpretation, with an emphasis on genital symbolism and genital conflict in dreams. Of particular value is Garma's original idea of using drawings and paintings made by the patient of his dreams, some of which are included in the text.

The remaining chapters introduce us to Garma's pioneering thesis on schizophrenia and the nature of wish fullfilment in dreams in which he deviates from the orthodox approach. In contrast to the generally held view, Garma holds that schizophrenics “show a much more intense repression of their libidinal wishes than neurotics.” Moreover—and this is Garma's major modification of Freudian theory—he argues that the most decisive factor in dreams is not wish fullfilment, but that traumatic situations play a more decisive role in the genesis and construction of dreams, and that they are responsible for the hallucinatory character of dreams. The traumatic situation in the latent content may be transformed in the manifest content into a pleasant situation by which the wish fulfillment is effected. The book is an impressive contribution to dream analysis. It's thesis is illustrated by brief analyses of about 150 dreams, as well as from literature, painting and folklore.

H. S.