The Psycho-Analytic Situation—Contribution to Discussion1

The well-known attempts to study and compare the analytic situation with the hypnotic situation are carried further by Mr Khan with the help of dream psychology. By introducing a new concept, the 'good dream', Khan establishes a relationship between dream work and analytic work. As long as he is dealing with the physical setting which provides conditions conducive to regression and describes the passive role of the analyst, his receptiveness, sympathy, understanding, the analogies like reinforcement of the 'wake-wish', etc., are possible. Once the role of the transference is introduced, which makes the analysis therapeutic, the contradistinction to dreaming becomes obvious. What remains is, of course, the use of the analytic setting by patient and analyst, and it is a question whether dream psychology can help us to clarify this issue. As I tried to follow Khan's reasoning, it occurred to me that he may have modelled his new concept of a 'good dream' on Kris's concept of 'the good analytic hour' (6) for a very specific reason. Kris does not refer to the quality of the transference as being hypnotic when he describes the good analytic hour. Yet you will remember this situation is one in which the analyst's passivity is at a maximum, as is his intimacy with the patient. Khan may have been impressed by this, and this would come closest to the intra-psychic situation which he defined in his paper as conducive to the materialization of a 'good dream'. This is as far as I could follow the analogy, and I am certain that Khan's fourteen points will interest everyone who values dream psychology. The 'good analytic hour', however, is a clinical phenomenon, the result of complex interactions, of which we cannot find a similar example in dream formation.

Another source of Khan's need to have a concept like the 'good dream' available for the measure of analytic success may be his interest in sleep disturbances appearing during analysis. This interest, however, should n