1979Contemporary PsychoanalysisRequires access

Who is the Dreamer Who Dreams the Dream and Who is the Dreamer Who Understands It

James S. Grotstein

Open publisher page 55 citations

Abstract

In an analytic hour one can only marvel at the effectiveness of the Dreamer who Dreams the Dream because in this instance (s)he is the one who organizes the schedule of sequence of problems, organized with that stochastic randomness known as free association. It is as if the dream actors do not know they arc actors. The Background Subject-Object of Primary Identification constitutes a background of safety as defined by Sandler (1960) or Winnicott's (1963) environmental mother as differentiated from the object mother. The specific symbolic constructs in the dream narrative attest to this ambiguity and therefore their own plasticity. It is to Bion's alpha function that we must look for the ultimate, irreducible element of creativity for it unites the Dreamer Who Dreams the Dream, the Dreamer Who Understands the Dream, the Dreamer Who Makes the Dream Understandable etc.

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What this paper is about

In an analytic hour one can only marvel at the effectiveness of the Dreamer who Dreams the Dream because in this instance (s)he is the one who organizes the schedule of sequence of problems, organized with that stochastic randomness known as free association. It is as if the dream actors do not know they arc actors. The Background Subject-Object of Primary Identification constitutes a background of safety as defined by Sandler (1960) or Winnicott's (1963) environmental mother as differentiated from the object mother. The specific symbolic constructs in the dream narrative attest to this ambiguity and therefore their own plasticity. It is to Bion's alpha function that we must look for the ultimate, irreducible element of creativity for it unites the Dreamer Who Dreams the Dream, the Dreamer Who Understands the Dream, the Dreamer Who Makes the Dream Understandable etc.

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Available abstract

In an analytic hour one can only marvel at the effectiveness of the Dreamer who Dreams the Dream because in this instance (s)he is the one who organizes the schedule of sequence of problems, organized with that stochastic randomness known as free association. It is as if the dream actors do not know they arc actors. The Background Subject-Object of Primary Identification constitutes a background of safety as defined by Sandler (1960) or Winnicott's (1963) environmental mother as differentiated from the object mother. The specific symbolic constructs in the dream narrative attest to this ambiguity and therefore their own plasticity. It is to Bion's alpha function that we must look for the ultimate, irreducible element of creativity for it unites the Dreamer Who Dreams the Dream, the Dreamer Who Understands the Dream, the Dreamer Who Makes the Dream Understandable etc.

Key concepts: Dream, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapist

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