ABSTRACT
S. Freud, who recognized the grave importance of dreams, their role as “royal road to the unconscious”, treated individuals only, as have most subsequent analysts. The dream work seemed to intensify the family’s positive transference through a deepening of the treatment’s holding power. Family dream interpretation became a mainstay of work and was especially helpful in an inpatient setting in which the number of sessions was limited. That is, dream work often pointed us in the direction of a conflict or loss that might have taken much longer to surface without it. The dream might also have pointed to the loss of family members, and/or abandonment by internal objects. In the context of a culture that in many ways deplores depth, the power of dream analysis may lie in helping intimate partners to recognize the existence of, and find ways of engaging, the other’s inner life.
