dream analysis

• dream analysis is a technique used in psychoanalysis to help treat mental abnormalities and anxiety by assigning meanings to dreams.
• Freud claimed that all dreams were a type of wish fulfilment and represented an unconscious desire that could not be satisfied by the conscious mind.
• STEP ONE


  • the dreamer recalls their dream to the therapist
  • what the dreamer remembers (the story of the dream) is referred to as the manifest content.
• STEP TWO


  • the process of dreamwork is applied to understand the dream
  • dreamwork is when the latent content (underlying meaning of the dream) is transferred to the manifest content.
• STEP THREE


  there are five main processes in dreamwork: condensation, displacement, representation, symbolism and secondary elaboration
• condensation


  this is the idea that many elements that make up the latent content were sometimes represented by one image/picture
• displacement 


  Freud noted that significant features of the latent content were sometimes represented as seemingly insignificant features of the manifest content
• representation


  this is the idea that an abstract thought is represented by a visual image
• symbolism


  any significant features of the dream may be replaced by a symbol, e.g. a sword representing a penis
• secondary elaboration


  this process occurs by the unconscious collecting of all the images within the dream and fitting them together in order to make sense of the dream.

  this gives it a logical story, but by doing this it further disguises the latent content.
• STEP FOUR


  • the therapist reverses the dreamwork process to undcover the underlying meaning of the dream
  • it is important that the therapist considers the context of the client's life when offering interpretations
  • more than one interpretation should be offered, allowing the client to select the one that makes the most sense to them