TELLING DREAMS AND THE TRANSFERENCE - THE INTERACTIONAL FUNCTION OF DREAM REPORTS AS FREE ASSOCIATIONS

Since Freud's Dream Interpretation and his additional writings on the analysis of dreams, technique of handling a dream report within the an alytic session has nearly been unchanged. It is characterized by dream centered associations and their interpretation in regard to dream con tents and to transference. This approach constitutes an alien element within contemporary interactional psychoanalytic technique and tends t o provoke resistances in the analytic dialogue. This article stresses the function of reporting of dreams during the session in respect to t he interactional process. It comes to the conclusion that sufficient a ttention should be drawn to interactional analysis of dream reporting following the questions: Why does the patient at this point of the pro cess tell a dream, and why does he tell this very dream instead of ano ther?