therapy

• Dream analysis

  Involves the psychotherapist asking the client to describe their dream (manifest content) in detail and discuss each element, expressing any thoughts that come to them (free association)
• Dream-work

  1. Condensation

  2. Displacement

  3. Representation

  4. Symbolism

  5. Secondary elaboration
• Latent content

  The client's unconscious wishes and desires that have been repressed
• Role of the therapist

  1. Undo the steps of dream-work by discussing the dream in relation to the client's background and childhood experiences

  2. Help the client see how the repressed conflicts in the unconscious mind are related to the context of the person's life

  3. Facilitate the client gaining insight into these issues, leading to catharsis (emotional release) and resolution of the client's problems
• effectiveness. 70.4% of patients benefit from working on their dreams as part of psychoanalysis (Schredl, 2000)
• effectiveness. Dream analysis can aid the client's insight and level of involvement or commitment to the therapy increasing likeliness of efficacy (Peasant and Zadra, 2004)
• effectiveness. Many of Freud's own cases (e.g. Wolf Man) were unsuccessful in curing patients, suggesting dream analysis is ineffective
• effectiveness. Difficult to measure the success of dream analysis as it is used as part of a wider therapeutic process (psychoanalysis) that takes years
• Patient therapist relationships can become blurred-e.g. when Dora transferred her feeling for Herr K to Freud, or Anna O claimed she was pregnant by Breuer
• Revealing repressed experiences could cause risks of stress, anxiety and humiliation