Patient's sleep on the analytic couch

Published reports about sleep on the couch have primarily emphasized its preoedipal (especially oral) determinants and defensive purposes. A detailed case is presented in which sleep became the central symptom of the transference neurosis. The primary determinants of the symptom were from the phallic-oedipal stage of development. Like other symptoms, the sleep symptom was a reliving of earlier experiences and was analyzed primarily through the transference. The analytic data from the case are used to illustrate resistance as an ally in the psychoanalytic process.