Validation of the psychoanalytic clinical process: the role of dreams

This paper explores the place of dreams in the validation of the actuality of an evolving psychoanalytic clinical process. The specificity of psychoanalysis, in the author's perspective, consists basically in its being an intersubjective clinical practice; because of this, positivistic notions of validation, such as verification as a search for constancies and regularities, have no proper place here. The shared emotional experience--the intersubjectivity--of the psychoanalytic pair is the place where our method must be validated. Dreams, not only as a solitary intrapsychic production during sleep, but also as narratives made by the analysand within the setting, are an essential part of working through and provide a feasible way to attain some degree of validation of the process. The analysand's narrative of his dreams leads to a 'shared dreaming' in session of the analysand-analyst pair; leaving aside their role as resistance, dreams emerge from emotional experiences as a 'construction of knowledge', as an attempt at symbolic elaboration.