Dreams as Indicators of the Psychoanalytic Treatment Process

Abstract

In this article a psychoanalytic treatment will be employed to illustrate the
use of dreams as indicators of the psychoanalytic process. The author hopes
to demonstrate that dreams offer indications about what is happening in the
process of psychoanalytic treatment, and awareness of this is useful in furthering
therapeutic goals. Another theme is the conflict about personal agency
in which the patient and analyst were intertwined. The patient’s dreams
showed her struggle to become an effective, creative, independent woman,
rather than subordinating her interests and mind to men, or sacrificing her
femininity, imitating men to function independently, while the author experienced
his ambition to write this article with ambivalence. Freud’s “royal
road” appears well furnished with speed limits, traffic directions, destination
indicators, and warning signs.