ABSTRACT
Despite proposed theoretical and clinical modifications emanating from ego psychology, object relations theory and self psychology (for a review, see Fosshage, 1983), Freud's biologically dominated conception of dreams as primarily energy discharging and wish fulfilling in function has remained central to the classical psychoanalytic models of dream formation and dream interpretation. Although the shift from the topographical to the structural models of the mind (Freud, 1923; Arlow and Brenner, 1964), has emphasized in dreams the omnipresence of conflict between the three psychic agencies (id, ego, and superego) the primary impetus for the dream, from a classical vantage point, remains the wish that represents an instinctual drive, infantile in origin and seeking gratification throughout one's life (Altman, 1969). And clinically, although dream interpretation has increasingly focused on the latent conflict, in contrast to simply the latent wish, no dream is considered fully analyzed until the infantile sexual or aggressive wishes have been uncovered.
