Modern psychiatry/psychology's neglect of dreaming - psychoanalysis "fault"?

[StephL]

Yupp - I wanted this in science and mathematics, because I talk about the science of dealing with the mind. In especially about professional interventions in cases of mental illness and other conditions, which trouble the mind in ways, that lead sufferers to seek for professional help and guidance. There would be various other places for such a thread to be on topic - but why not here? I find it unfortunate to say the least, that Freudian ideology seems to almost have a monopoly on the topic of dreaming. Dreams are not part of a classical psychiatric discourse, also modern schools of thought in psychotherapy, like CBT, which are otherwise highly insightful - appear to be not interested. I can't help feeling, that this might be at least partly down to people feeling compelled to distance themselves - and clearly - from psychoanalysis with all the ideological ballast that orbits this practice. You don't need to do a free association session a là Freud - you don't need to try to theorize, as to what all that means, and where it comes from. While the former method - the strength of psychoanalysis in my eyes - is useful. Once somebody starts to free associate and around dreams - a spontaneous emergence of understanding from the patient's side alone tends to appear. To theorize, where it all comes from - I do disagree with Freudian analysis in that regard. I even believe, that in the case of dreams being "classical" for Freudian thinking - mechanisms of self-fulfilling prophesy are at work - on different levels. I fail to believe that there is not a much better, ideology-free and also systematic approach to assess the value of making use of dreams in psychotherapy. Dreaming in connection with mental health - in my view - should be newly analysed by scholars, and a fresh picture made of it, which gets extended and enhanced. Research needs to be conducted - there is research being done, I am happy to know - but up to now, I didn't specifically try to follow up on proceedings. Please link us up - or just tell us, what you might have in terms of such resources! Of course LD needed to be included - teaching it is clearly beneficent to troubled minds - at the very least, when it comes to nightmares. I will try to find a study of which I read lately, about there being a significantly higher rate of mental illness in the non-LDing population, compared to LDers. This is amazing - however the background to this will turn out to look!! From a perspective free of preformed schemes and ideology - I could imagine, that a fresh, systematic approach also to dream-interpretation is possible and potentially very useful. What do you think? How would you go about analysing the phenomenon of dreams anew? Do you want to defend psychoanalysis against my negative depiction? Did I miss out on such work already being done, and the fascinating results, you want to tell us about? Over to you! smile.gif