Dreams and psychoanalysis -: A love-hate story

This article explores the early and contemporary relationship between dreams and psychoanalysis. Dreams, once at the center of psychoanalytic theory and practice, have lost their singular importance, having been replaced by other concerns (e.g., the therapeutic relationship). The causes of this decline are many and complex, but include, in this hypothesis, a long-standing underlying ambivalence (both love and hate) toward dreams and their interpretation in psychoanalysis. Aspects of this unacknowledged ambivalence include significant cultural, personal, and systemic factors, which are elaborated. Both appreciation, pleasure, and interest, on the one hand, and fear, suspicion, and domination, on the other, are described. The classical method and the interpersonal and relational approaches are examined in relation to dreams, and both are found to reflect difficulties in approaching dreams. Finally, the love-hate story is extended into the relation between dreams, psychoanalysis, and the new electronic era.