The dreams of a cancer patient: a "royal road" to understanding the somatic illness.
In this paper we have presented the principal dreams of a 39-year-old female patient in order to demonstrate how closely the dreams were linked with the understanding of her cancerous condition. The analysis, lasting over a period of eight years, ended with the remission of the patient's cancerous condition to the point where she was without pain and symptom-free. The findings suggested that her dreams played a special role in her analysis by providing important landmarks regarding her treatment's progress and state of her cancerous condition. In a general sense, it was concluded that the patient's dreams did provide a "royal road" to understanding her somatic illness. Specifically, it was concluded that, first, the patient's dreams were able to represent quite reliably, in symbolic form, the state of her cancerous condition; second, that the cancer condition and transference-countertransference reactions were closely entwined; and third, that each of the patient's dreams seemed to be introduced by a crisis situation connected with a traumatic early memory.
Calogeras
R C
RC
Alston
T M
TM
D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition; D004325:Dreams; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000523:psychology*