Introduction

In 1900 a revolutionary step was taken in the understanding of the mind when Sigmund Freud put forward a model that integrated emotional life and mental processes. This was as relevant to so-called normal people as to those who were more emotionally troubled. In this model the capacity for symbol formation, particularly through the use of verbal language, was crucial. Freud had originally seen the power of putting previously forgotten, socially undesirable or sanctioned thoughts into words in releasing the patient from the grip of disabling states of mind. To what was initially called ‘the talking cure’ (Breuer & Freud 1893), Freud added an equally important emphasis on the work of dreaming, ‘the royal road to the unconscious’. Freud saw dreams both as revealing the workings of the mind and as the means through which the mind represents its motivations and experiences to itself, as conflicts and frustrations are worked through in the relative safety of sleep (Freud 1900).