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Under the title dream-work-α I propose to bring together a number of mental activities all of which are familiar to practising psychoanalysts, although they may not have previously associated them together in this way and may not indeed feel the need or value of associating them in the way I propose after they have familiarized themselves with what I am about to say.
The title, ‘dream-work’, has already a meaning of great value. I wish to extend some of the ideas already associated with it and to limit others. It has seemed to me least likely to cause confusion if I group my ideas under a new title which indicates the affiliations of my ideas and yet makes clear that a distinction is being proposed from the theories already grouped under the term, ‘dream-work’.
The main sources, other than the stimulations of psychoanalytic practice and historical affiliations of these grouped ideas, are threefold:
Freud's Interpretation of Dreams [1900a] and especially the elaboration of his theories of dream-work.
Freud's paper, ‘Two Principles of Mental Functioning’ [1911b] and his New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis [1933a]. Essential to this orientation are the views he expresses on narcissism and the future development of that concept in his paper, ‘Instincts and Their Vicissitudes’ [1915c].
Melanie Klein's theories of splitting, projective identification, and the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions. In one very important respect I have made extensive use of her description of the difference of her views on guilt and super-ego formation [Developments in Psycho-Analysis, 1952, p. 273 et seq. and p. 281 et seq.] from those of Freud in what I want to say about the nature of social guilt, acting out, and delinquency in the psychotic patient.