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1 How do you conceive of the function of dreams? Do you distinguish dreams as a result of trauma from other types of dreams?
I would like to explore dreams as part of one of the very many functions that the mind is capable of performing while the person is asleep where defences are not operating fully: that is, how dreams function as a form of unconscious thinking, a private theatre where meaning is generated and transformed. The dreams of our patients can be viewed as playing the part of a playwright who brings to light a very private theatre of the patient's psychic reality and shows the way in which it has come into being and has been transformed since early childhood. It is therefore my contention that the psychical working out function performed by dreams is a form of unconscious thinking which transforms affects into memories and mental structures. It also comprehends a process through which meaning is apprehended, built and transformed at an expressive non- discursive level, based on representation through pictorial images. In this process fresh symbols are created which widen the capacity of the person to think about the meanings of his emotional experiences.
The notion of psychical working out comprehends the concept of working through as a special kind of mental work resulting from the analyst's interpretations or from life experiences that can be closely followed by looking at our patients’ dreams. In discussing this subject I am implicitly attempting to clarify the way in which meaning is built and transformed in mental life.
The emotions are not only indicative of mental states. Above all, they represent kernels of meaning. These kernels are constituted of internal objects which, as structures of the ego, function as complex magnetic poles which organize emotional experiences. Attraction in these kernels is exerted by similarity of meanings and emotional function. These structures operate as internal unconscious moulds or templates that attribute mea