The Dream in the Therapeutic Encounter: A Theoretical Formulation and Single Case Study

Liam Bang

Liam Bang The New School for Social Research

Abstract

The present paper seeks to better understand the underlying mechanisms and phenomenology of dreaming and dream telling in the psychotherapeutic encounter. Toward that end, this paper offers a theoretical framework regarding the interplay between intrapsychic and intersubjective mechanisms underlying dreaming, dream telling, and dream interpretation in psychodynamic psychotherapy, with a focus on the capacity of the dream to facilitate unique communicative pathways. This theoretical framework informs a discussion of the results of several self-report psychotherapy process measures from a single 12-session treatment, including the Working Alliance Inventory, Session Evaluation Questionnaire and Session Impact Scale.

Keywords: introjection, projection, projective identification, introjective projective identification in the dream, transitionality, dream telling in psychotherapy

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