The child dream and the child transference.
This paper explores the symbolic meaning of dreams in which children appear with special attention to the way children in dreams symbolize the self, particularly the dependent and developing self. It is suggested that patients' growth in analysis can be monitored by observing what happens to the children in their dreams. This paper also explores the vicissitudes of the child transference, in which the patient treats the analyst as a child. An analysis is described in which the child dream and the child transference played an important role in elucidating the patient's neurotic behaviors. The author contends that the child dream and the child transference are common and clinically useful phenomena, especially important in the analysis of dependency conflicts. An additional thesis of this paper is that the child transference is most likely to be found in instances where a patient played a parental role with one of their parents during childhood.
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De Francisco
D002648:Child; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003858:Dependency, Psychological; D004325:Dreams; D004532:Ego; D005114:Extramarital Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009497:Neurotic Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D010551:Personality; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D012043:Regression, Psychology; D013561:Symbolism; D014167:Transference, Psychology