Chapter 8 Dreams, the Understanding—Explaining Sequence, and the Facilitation of Curative Process

Since biblical days when, for example, Joseph interpreted the pharaoh's dream as a prophecy of seven years of fat followed by seven years of lean, dreams have been seen as disguised messages that require an expert interpreter. In Freud's approach the messages were no longer seen as mystical or spiritual. They were from the patient's unconscious. However, he retained the sense of the dream as a disguised communication requiring decoding or interpretation by an expert.

The search for truth and hidden meaning, often considered to be the spirit of psychoanalysis, is exciting and fascinating. This chapter is not about dream interpretation in that sense. What I want to focus on is a self-psychological approach to the clinical use of dreams in relation to the facilitation of curative process. The major point of this chapter is that dreams, and the analyst's responsiveness to them, provide an excellent opportunity for the development of a playful and metaphorical communication between analyst and patient that can enhance the curative process. In order to illustrate one approach to this process with a particular patient, two dreams and the analyst's responses to them will be considered within the context of whole sessions. Another patient's dream and the analyst's responses to it will also be introduced to represent a somewhat different approach. The contrast between these approaches, each appropriate with a different patient, highlights the main tenet of this chapter. The analyst's