Integrating Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy into a Residency Training Program

The night of a recent faculty meeting at our psychoanalytic institute, I had the following dream:

I was at some sort of meeting or seminar. The content of the meeting was unclear; when it ended, the participants had to find their way home. A group of us waited for a bus or train; none seemed to be going in the right direction. Finally, a bus came along that was going to New York. We got on it because it was going in the correct general direction, although not exactly where I wanted to go. When everyone was seated and the bus departed, various individuals made suggestions about how to raise funds and stimulate interest in our group. I looked around and saw that the majority of the passengers were not members of our group and not particularly interested in it, nor willing to give the amounts of money proposed. I became more and more frustrated, but was unable to make a sensible proposal of my own. The bus finally stopped at a station in a town where we had to transfer to another bus or train. I went to an information booth and asked directions to the place where we were supposed to transfer to another bus. However, the clerks at the booth were unable to give me an answer, and I was unable to provide them with the necessary information to help them out. I felt perplexed, lost, and uncertain. I awoke from the dream feeling very anxious.

When I reflected on this dream, it became apparent to me that, insofar as the previous night's experience was concerned, the dream was a metaphorical presentation of the current state of our psychoanalytic institute, psychoanalytic training, and my personal identity as a medical psychoanalyst. As with most dreams, there were additional themes of a