Freud: Classical to Modern (Cohort 1)

2-Year Certificate Program (2YCP), Cohort 1 (The Emotional Textures)
2024-25, 1st Term — Mondays, 8:00-9:15pm
James Basinski, MD

View Whole Syllabus

September 16, 2024

[68 pages]

The Interpretation of Dreams is one of Freud’s most significant and enduring contributions to clinical practice and the history of ideas.  In this class, we will read a chapter from a popular textbook by Glen Gabbard that summarizes the principles of working with dreams clinically, based on Freud’s original ideas.  We will also read a more modern paper by Kris expounding on the value of free association,and ‘wearing theory lightly’ amidst enduring usefulness of  Freud’s topographic model of the mind in therapy

Seminar Objectives:

• Understand Freud’s first structural theory, also known as the “topographic model”, including the key features of the unconscious.
• Become familiar with Freud’s landmark book The Interpretation of Dreams.
• Understand the four principle dreamwork mechanisms.
• Appreciate how dreams and fantasies can help elucidate the unconscious in clinical work.

Gabbard, G. (2017) Ch 7 “Use of Dreams and Fantasies in Dynamic Psychotherapy” in Long-Term Psychotherapy: A Basic Text, Third Edition, pp141-155.

Kris, A.O. (1983) The Analyst’s Conceptual Freedom in the Method of Free Association. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 64:407-411

Gay, P. (1988) Chapter 2, in Freud: A Life for Our Time, pp55-102

(Read pages 80-87 from the Peter Gay reading, starting with the last paragraph at the bottom of page 80.)