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Does globalization affect our dreaming? This would be the case if dreams, in an increasingly globalized world, showed a decrease in characteristic cultural traits. I maintain however that the specific culture of the dreamer is not relevant in dreams in the first place. Any effect globalization may have on us is therefore not essential to the subject matter of dreaming. Following Martin Heidegger's philosophical analysis of human existence, dreams are found to deal with emotionally relevant issues of our existence with which we have difficulties to come to terms. Matters of normality which are felt to be matters of course are not a topic in dreams. Consequently, normal cultural features only become a topic for dreaming in some form of negation of their normal function. An impressive dream-report, centering on a denied handshake, serves as an illustration. In conclusion, it is stated that dreams are concerned with those very individual responses to general human issues which do not comply with the collectively accepted so-called >normal< responses of the specific culture. Our cultural identity is only of very marginal interest in dreams. Dreams spring from and point to the psychoanalytic identity of the dreamer.
This paper clarifies the dual-layered nature of the >demon lover complex,< with its background of both pre-Oedipal trauma and Oedipal-level desire. It draws on an object relations understanding of the unconscious and dissociated addiction to an internal demon object that has derivations in the personalities of the actual parents, and in the internalization of these parents. The dramatic case of early trauma compounded by adult date rape trauma serves to illustrate how a >developmental mourning process< in treatment can resolve such trauma. It also illustrates how reparation with the mother that partially heals pre-Oedipal trauma cannot immunize anyone against Oedipal-level attractions to a >demon lover< father, as represented in a displacement, resulting in victimized behavior, and in an aborted surrender to heterosexual desire. However, this victimization can be resolved, as seen in the clinical illustration, when the psychoanalyst has an understanding of the mourning process in developmental terms, working with a natural interaction between mourning and transference evolutions in treatment. The case also demonstrates the transitional object role of the psychoanalyst who is involved with the healing of pre-Oedipal trauma through mourning.
Symbols psychoanalysis, depth psychology, mythology and religion from a multiplicity of perspectives – there are many guidelines for their interpretation and integration in clinical practice. The present study, based on a Jungian analytic model, incorporated the snake mother as an imaginary symbol in a patient with generalised anxiety disorder and her treatment within a clinical case study. From an integrative symbolism approach, snakes are considered mysterious, with the ability to express the primary instinctual powers and psychic energy that take root beyond the ego strength and archetypal images. Here, with respect to the patient's main complaint and her underlying core conflict according to Jungian therapy and Persian mythology, it was indicated that the snake mother symbolism, an imagery object from childhood to adolescence, originated from both the personal and the collective unconsciousness. The way in which the symbolism of the snake mother came to work in the therapeutic process was similar to a that of dream and symbolism approach. The snake mother operated as an alternative animus in the shape of a caregiving mother, and supported the patient against her father's misbehavior during her early childhood. It could represent the shadow, the reconsolidation of the anima/animus for patient, and a projection of negative thoughts and actions from animal instincts.
This paper tries to follow the historical development of the ideas related to the term >primary identification.< It is shown that Freud's thinking regarding primary identification was developed around the phenomenon of mass suggestion, which was explained using the concept of identification with the leader, >primary identification,< and Einfühlung. However, two false translations from Freud's German to English led to severe confusion in the subsequent literature. The most important one was that >Einfühlung< was translated as >empathy.< It is shown that Freud meant by Einfühlung something like affect contagion that was considered to be an inborn capacity to activate motoric patterns by just looking at the behavior of other human beings. This idea is a conceptual forerunner of mirror neurons. The activation of these is a prerequisite for empathy, but without separation between the self and the other, the attribution to which the feeling belongs is impossible. Kernberg, following Klein, uses the term >introjection< for the process of very early internalisations. We are proposing to discriminate interjections from identifications following Piaget's description of assimilation versus accommodation.