[The dream of Irma's injection. Theme polyphony and problem solving]

This paper on the specimen dream of psychoanalysis presents in its first part a survey of the manifold interpretive themes that have been found in this complex dream. Apart from wish fulfillment attributed to its content by Freud himself, this dream contains themes of the dreamer's creativity and points out the developmental state of psychoanalysis existing at that time. It gives a rather accurate picture of Freud's knowledge on transference and countertransference in 1895 and informs us on a series of psychological problems of the dreamer himself: his feelings of guilt, his latent homosexual tendencies, his aggressiveness toward colleagues and women as well as the state of his marital relation. A problem solving interpretation of the Irma dream reveals the still defective state of his new healing method as illustrated by the many therapeutic errors committed in the therapy of his patient Irma. The polyphony of themes that can be seen in the initial dream of psychoanalysis warns of monothematic interpretive proposals by therapists that are likely to be ill-understood or frankly rejected by patients in favor of openended interpretations.