Studying The Interpretation of Dreams in the Company of Analytic Candidates

Abstract

Seminars serve as an important, though undervalued, component of psychoanalytic education. The focus of this paper is on the teaching of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams through a series of seminars presented to analytic candidates at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institutes. This has been an essential book for introducing generations of candidates to the psychoanalytic concept of the mind and for shaping candidates’ understanding and attitudes toward working with their patients’ dreams. Four of Freud’s basic dream concepts—(1) the method and its application to the exploration of the relationship between manifest and latent dream content, (2) the sources of dreams (day residues), (3) the dream-work, and (4) wish fulfillment—are critically studied in the seminars. Detailed discussion of these basic dream concepts among the candidates and with the teacher, as well as the candidates’ feedback at the conclusion of the seminars, are summarized and discussed. Through the teaching and study within the seminar framework of the fundamentals of Freud’s dream theory, a shared growth experience results for both teacher and candidates.