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The study of dreams in patients suffering from psychosomatic disorders frequently shows a close relationship between the experiences represented in the dream and the somatic symptoms that follow such a dream. The authors' aim is to illustrate a method of relating the psychodynamics of such dreams to the psychodynamics of certain psychosomatic disorders, particularly arthritis. They are more interested in demonstrating this method than in their research findings concerning arthritis.
The case chosen for illustration is an arthritic whose symptoms increased after a dream containing the symbol of a strait jacket. Contrariwise, a dream of jumping up with agility after falling anticipated or reflected the subsidence of the patient's arthritic symptoms. The authors reconstruct the motives which activated the patient's behavior and dreams, taking note of the pattern of somatic functional activity implied by the observed, described, or dreamed behavior. By noting the relationships between this physiological pattern of behavior and the dreams, the authors get more and more detailed insight into the way in which the patient's psychosomatic disturbances are related to his habitual patterns of motivation.