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Freud's Interpretation of Dreams (1900) was, for him, the centerpiece of his work. When faced with uncertainty about theoretical questions, he would refer to this monumental study to guide his thinking. The theory of dreams, envisioned at first along topographic and then along structural lines, remained central to psychoanalytic approaches to dream interpretation until past the middle of the 20th century.
Early followers of Freud who developed theories on the nature and function of dreams that were different from his theory left the psychoanalytic movement entirely (Adler, 1936; Jung, 1916, 1945). By the beginning of the second half of the century, however, Freud's formulations on dreams were being challenged in important ways even within psychoanalysis. His conceptions of conflict in dreams, defenses, the dream censor, and the utility of the manifest dream have all had revisionist interpretations (see, for example, Bonime, 1962; Ullman and Zimmerman, 1959, 1979).
Within psychoanalysis, a more recent major challenge to traditional concepts has come with the introduction of self psychology, an approach that Heinz Kohut (1980), its founder, felt should expand and enrich traditional psychoanalysis but not replace it (p. 505). Kohut's writings emphasize concepts related to the development and experience of the self and its crucial (selfobject) relationships. Kohut referred to dreams fairly commonly in his writings, but these references were used mainly as additional evidence to support his formulations. Dream interpretation does not seem to form the centerpiece of his work, as it does for Freud's.