The construction of therapeutic allegories

Abstract

One of Freud's most significant discoveries was his uncovering of primary process thinking and his subsequent distinction between primary process thought and secondary process thought. However, Freud, perhaps because of his Victorian upbringing or his firsthand witnessing of the primitive power of the primary processes, conceived the secondary processes to be more desirable. Because of this bias, I believe Freud conceived of therapy as moving in only one direction, namely, in the direction of the expansion of the ego and the domination of the psyche by secondary process thinking. Translated into technique, these goals meant bringing unconscious meanings into consciousness where they could be understood and ultimately controlled by the secondary processes. Thus, therapy was conceived by Freud as a process whereby a catharsis of emotions and a liberation of libidinal energies could be directed toward realistic ends as defined by the secondary processes. From an objective standpoint though, there is nothing to recommend the secondary processes over the primary processes. That a patient is better offso dominated is a subjective appraisal-though it is one I agree with. Nevertheless, because of the value we place upon the secondary processes, I believe that we may have overlooked a meaningful form of therapy. By concentrating solely upon the expansion of the ego and the domination by the secondary processes, we overlook the obvious method of dealing directly with the primary processes themselves. If a patient brings a dream to the therapist, our inclination is to interpret the dream in order to reveal its latent meaning. In such a case, we choose only to converse with the consciousness and the secondary processes which are under its command. But what if we wished to discuss the particular problem that is represented by the dream with the unconscious? Then, in order to enter that discussion, we would have to speak the language of the unconscious. Now a dream is an allegorical representation of a problem or a drive, of dynamics and content. It represents a vocabulary and a grammar of symbolism often with special reference to peculiarities in the history of the individual as well as to idiosyncratic meanings. To enter a