Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 09:03:51 -0800
From: "Wilkerson, Richard" <rcwilk-AT-dreamgate.com>
Subject: Re: Postmodern Dreaming


HI Brent,

At 09:28 AM 2/4/00 -0500, you wrote:
>the analysand is paying for the
>session and expects the analyst to known the inner workings of the psyche,
>just as s/he would expect a plumber to have an understanding of the inner
>workings of his/her sewage system ....

  As you say, the whole thing can be worked out in the transference, and 
this is true for any teacher... psychotherapist or not. That is, the 
teacher has in his/her hands a *useful* illusion. It is especially useful 
if the teacher's motives are to get the student to see that what they are 
projecting can be re-owned and become a valuable character trait or value 
system.  In a field like physics, one is guided to begin developing one's 
own theories after recovering from the disappointment that teacher doesn't 
know what you wanted them to know.
  Still, this is all like ancient initiation rites and full of mirrors 
which smacks of charletanism in the 21st Century where the up and up is the 
expectation of the day.  Do we withhold our knowledge that they *will*make 
it through the rite without dying and spoil the passage, or lie and 
withhold that knowledge so they *are* scared to death and get enough juice 
to transform?

analyzing the patient or the dream?  This becomes difficult in my system as 
the axis of concern is shifted from the singularity claiming the dream to 
the relations between them. Since I am also trying to restore the dream as 
an acceptable cultural object, I have to exaggerate the individual dream's 
rights. More like couple's counselling, with one client the dream, the 
other the dreamer.

However, I really want the dream off the couch and in the culture.

  -Richard