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From ancient times, man has attempted to interpret dreams—to foretell the future, to make military and other decisions, to determine the course of illness, and above all to understand the intentions of the gods who sent those dreams. It was the soothsayers who were called on to interpret them, a task that they performed brilliantly on occasion (if we are to credit the accounts that have come down to us). They employed a combination of symbolic understanding, common sense, and principally an intuitive sense of what the dreamer, often a charismatic and violent ruler, wanted to hear. They were not as a rule interested in understanding the unconscious desires of the dreamer, nor did they bother to elicit his or her associations (Stein, 1984). This was left for Freud.
Dr. Mendelsohn is interested in determining the unconscious thoughts and desires of the dreamer and claims that he can discover these by a kind of direct interpretation of the dream text as related by the dreamer, without resorting to the latter's associations. He does so by employing the context in which the dream occurred and his own understanding of symbolism. His method has much in common with the kind of interpretation that Freud, citing Silberer, referred to as anagogic (Freud, 1900, p. 524).
Anagogic interpretation (in this context) may be defined as that which is expressed in abstract and intellectual terms and generally avoids the more fundamental sources of resistance. Such interpretation is likely to be readily accepted by the dreamer, for it arouses little or no anxiety. Freud was dismissive, asserting that it had no place in psychoanalytic work. But he left open whether it could be useful in other types of therapy. Without using the term, many authors (e.g., Kohut, 1977, pp. 108-110) have employed such interpretation, claiming to have found it valuable in understanding clinical progress. Mendelsohn goes much further, however, in his claims for instant understanding and clinical benefit.