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It is refreshing to read a book which (out of fashion as it may be) places dream interpretation at the very heart of the analytic process. As Dr. Sloane reminds us, nothing is so convincing to analyst and patient alike as a drearn where manifest content, day residue, and associations lead inevitably to an interpretation which evokes recognition of its validity. The surprise of discovery, the feeling of almost direct contact with the unconscious is available to us all too seldom in other analytic data. Loss of interest in dream interpretation has impoverished the analytic process for patient and analyst alike.
Dr. Sloane's book is an outgrowth of a seminar on dream interpretation given to analvtic candidates at the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis. The dreams presented, on the whole, are from student cases. Dr. Sloane points out that although no special selection of cases was made, the patients described had “comparatively normal object relations and could benefit from classical analytic procedures characterized in the main by simple interpretations.” Dr. Sloane concludes that this kind of patient (which is of course required for dream analysis) is not unusual despite the amount of attention now being given to cases of severe ego disturbances.
The book deals comprehensively with the dream, covering such topics as the manifest dream, dream wish, and validity of interpretation, among others. Dr. Sloane illustrates how the analyst must oscillate between past and present, manifest and latent content, always checking back for clinical data to check speculative flights of imagination. As he traces the vicissitudes of the dream wish he illustrates the multidetermined nature of psychological phenomena.
One of the most difficult aspects of writing about dreams is to present enough clinical material to make the interpretation convincing. Dr. Sloane, who has had to deal with fragments of cases to present many aspects of the dream, has dealt fairly successfully with this