Therapeutic perspectives on working with dreams in analytic psychotherapy Let's talk about dreams!

摘要

In psychodynamic therapy, dreams are essential to gain insights into the unconscious and to understand the unconscious dynamics of patients. Nowadays, there are many different theories with respect to the genesis and interpretation of dreams; however, the questions how psychoanalysts work with dreams and what they think about this approach remain unanswered. Using the method of guided expert interviews, 11 psychoanalysts were interviewed to gain their perspectives on working with dreams in psychoanalytic therapy and their answers were analyzed by applying qualitative content analysis. The analysis of the interviews resulted in five generic categories covering different aspects of the psychoanalytic work with dreams in therapy. The categories relate to (1) the value and functions of working with dreams in analytic therapy, (2) the therapists' ways of working with dreams, (3) influencing factors on working with dreams (e.g., patient variables, setting of the therapy), (4) difficulties when working with dreams and (5) the therapist's theoretical orientation and the development of a therapeutic style concerning working with dreams. The interviews revealed the importance of working with dreams in analytic psychotherapy, which is multifaceted and depends on the respective treatment situation and the patients. Furthermore, a standard procedure for reaching the unconscious in dreams does not seem to exist. The interviewees drew their expertise from different theoretical approaches and the theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung and Fritz Morgenthaler in particular seem to have had a major influence. Due to the small sample size, the results cannot be considered representative. Future research could investigate the perspectives of patients/analysands on working with dreams.