INTRODUCING FREUD: Dreams (and Self-Analysis)

Day course with Keith Barrett BA PhD

At one stage, Freud maintained that in order to practise as a psychoanalyst, the only qualification necessary was to have learned to interpret one’s own dreams.

This statement reflected the fact that he had embarked upon a self-analysis, during the year of mourning following his father’s death, by analysing his own dreams. He changed his mind on the training of future analysts later, but nevertheless, the centrality of dream interpretation to psychoanalysis has never been more clearly underlined.

The course will examine in detail Freud’s method of interpreting dreams, and the theory of dreams he proposed to support it. We will compare Freud’s method with other approaches to dream interpretation, discuss the role of dreams in psychotherapy, and review the latest findings of sleep science as they bear on Freud’s ideas. We will also explore Freud’s attempt to analyse himself.

Dreams (and Self-Analysis) day course outline.

This is the third of five Saturday courses offering a complete introduction to Freud. The course will be accessible to beginners – but is also designed for those already familiar with Freud’s work who wish to acquaint themselves with the results of the latest research and scholarship bearing upon it, and up-date themselves on the recent debates addressing the intellectual issues and controversies surrounding it.