[The use of dreams in the management of criminals]

The article describes the peculiarity of dreams to be not only a kind of mirror of everyday reality - as is mostly the case - but also to be concerned with emotions in highly strung personalities who repress these emotions during waking awareness and deny their subconscious existence. In this respect dreams are suitable for diagnosing and anticipating the actions of the probationers for whom the social rehabilitation worker has to care. They can also serve as a medium of self-insight for such probationers who can realise their own conflicts. It is a well-known fact that such self-insight can be much more effective than any effort by outsiders to produce readaptation to a normal environment.