Book Review:
The Meaning of the Dream in Psychoanalysis, by Rachel B. Blass, State University of New York Press, 2000, 234 pp.
Marianne Horney Eckardt.
American Journal of Psychoanalysis. New York: Jun 2003. Vol.63, Iss. 2; pg. 193
Abstract (Document Summary)
Eckhardt reviews The Meaning of the Dream in Psychoanalysis by Rachel B. Blass
Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers Jun 2003
Book Review: The Meaning of the Dream in Psychoanalysis, by Rachel B. Blass, State University of New York Press, 2000, 234 pp.
This is a philosophic epistemological inquiry into Freud's psychoanalytic theory regarding the meaning of dreams. This should have been suggested in a subtitle. This reviewer claims little philosophic expertise and thus finds herself in foreign territory. Being a foreigner affects my review. My outsider status, this is not being conversant with the rules of the game, may conceivably add a perspective, or, on the other hand, may fail to comprehend meanings.
The author is a psychoanalyst, but writes as a philosopher who is thoroughly at ease with analytic epistemological inquiry. She clearly states her objective and precisely formulates her questions, her mode of proceeding, her findings, and conclusions. In this approach, the precision of the logic and the consistency of argumentation is highly valued. Blass does not question whether dreams have meaning. She is investigating the justifications given for the assertion that we can know a meaning of a dream. More specifically, she is analyzing whether Freud's own justifications of the various propositions entailed in his theory about dreams have a reasonable validity. The author is not a basher of Freud or of psychoanalysis. To the contrary, she writes: "I will take as a basic premise that psychoanalytic theory as a whole is valid and justified" (p. 2). Blass is well aware that she may encounter a readership woefully unprepared for this rigorous exercise and begs for some attentive cooperation. The clarity of her explanations makes it relatively easy to follow her step by step.
We are first treated to her elucidation of the three concepts basic to her exploration: the concepts of meaning, justification, and truth. I was intrigued by this lesson in appreciation of the many aspects of meaning. We need to consider the meaning within the subject and the meaning within the observer. The meaning of a statement differs from the meaning of the stating. The meaning of a statement can be described, created, or discovered. Freud definitely referred to meaning discovered. Blass enlivens this section by detailing her disagreements with her co-philosopher Adolph Crunbaun, who is well known for his finding much amiss in the theoretical structure of psychoanalysis. The central concept of justification is equally complex and has also given rise to divergent views. The Foundationalists' theory of justification stresses the need for a theory to be based on a foundation that has a high degree of certainty. Their approach may be atomistic, looking at each detail, or holistic when the final gestalt carries more weight. The Foundationalists' theory is challenged by the Coherence theory of justification, which maintains that the observation of raw data is always influenced by the theories held by the observer, and thus raw data cannot give us the certainty needed. This theory favors a justification of coherence, that is, whether a proposition fits well together with related propositions. Donald Spence's emphasis on narrative truth rather than on facts illustrates this position.
Chapter 2 examines Freud's justifications of his propositions that true meaning of the dream can be discovered by the application of the psychoanalytic method. His propositions are: (a) there is a technique that makes dream interpretation possible, (b) all dreams have meanings that in some specific way are related to the mental activity of wakeful life, and (c) there are specific processes of obscuring the dream, the analysis of which reveals the psychic forces that generate the dream. Freud's statement of these propositions in his book The Interpretation of Dreams, does not include his assertion that dreams are wish fulfillments, though his later elaboration of this belief has led most students to consider this an essential aspect of his theory. Blass justifies her omission of considering this aspect of Freud's theory by asserting that is was not a primary concern of his. Her careful analysis finds that Freud fails her criteria of justifications. Freud fails partly because he often indulged in circular reasoning, but mainly because his theories of dreams relied on assumptions not explicitly stated. They emanated from his broader theory of psychoanalysis, which he was evolving at the same time. This leads the author to her next focus of investigation. She examines the question of whether it is legitimate to apply to the dream theory the general psychoanalytic principles and techniques by which meaning is discovered. Again, Freud's justifications fail the test of validity. He equated mental events in the waking state with events happening in the dream state. He dealt with the normal dream event as he would deal with a pathological symptom of a patient. It is at this point that Blass reassures us all is not lost. We do not have to abandon Freud's theory of the meaning of dreams. She has come upon another source of evidence that provides the necessary support for justification. Before revealing this solution of rescue to us, she briefly refers to the many later psychoanalytic contributions made to the theory of dreams. However, she does not find these contributions relevant to her study, as they do not fit the framework of reference of valid justifications of Freud's theory of meaning of dreams. The scholars of psychoanalytic dream work took for granted the fact that dreams have meaning and were not troubled with proving how they proceeded to find meaning.
The author proposes a different source of evidence for a valid justification. Freud's approach was atomistic, dealing with each proposition separately. Blass favors a holistic approach. What evidence, she asks, do we have for regarding the dream state to be similar to the waking state? Such an assumption demands that the network of meaning in these two different states be similar. This evidence we cannot find when we focus on the content. Dream language and waking language are different. We find it only, Blass states, in the subjective "experiential quality of meaningfulness." We rarely encounter this experiential feeling in its pure form, for content enters the moment the dream is remembered or told. The scenarios for a pure form would be a statement like, "I woke up knowing I had a dream that was significant, but I forgot the dream." Such as experience would suggest that the network of meaning in the dreaming state is similar to the network of meaning in the waking state. Once that assumption is found to be valid, we are justified in applying our mode of psychoanalytic understanding not only to the events in waking life but also to whatever understanding we can gain of the dream. As the value of an epistemological inquiry is in its step-by-step preciseness, my summary does no more than give a general idea of the content of the book.
My comments of critique are offered in a different style, let us say my own freewheeling style. The book left me frustrated. I do not think we achieve the best perspective of Freud's contributions by examining the logic of his reasoning. Freud's very genius conceivably rests in his creation of a theoretical mythology (a unique mixture of art and science), which proved more wrong than right, but that opened revolutionary doors to fertile ground that is still delivering riches. Even though I cannot judge this epistemological inquiry on its own terms, my common sense cannot accept the validity of omission from consideration of so many factors that seem to me to be part of the theoretical package. On page 2, as mentioned, Blass writes, "I will take as a basic premise that the psychoanalytic theory is valid as a whole and justified." This assumption is made in order to allow her to proceed with her very specific focus on justifications. I doubt that the author believes that the psychoanalytic theory as a whole is valid and justified. The assumption is made to make this particular inquiry possible. A similar omission is that of the wish-fulfillment theory of the dream on nonproven ground that this was not of Freud's primary concern.
Other voids puzzled me and gave me the feeling that this exercise was artificially created to allow Blass to make her point rather than conduct a true search to evaluate Freud's sources of knowing. I certainly believe, as the author does, that the network of meaning in dreaming is similar to the network of meaning when awake. I do not know whether we can prove or justify this assumption. In my own clinical work, I am far less concerned with the understanding of the meaning of a dream than in the capacity of dream imagery to enliven a therapeutic hour. The author's tight reasoning in a narrow area is embedded in larger assumptions, which to this reader are not self-evident. She states, in announcing her solution to the problem of justification, that because of her new evidence that now justifies treating dreams as meaningful, we do not have to abandon Freud's theory of the meaning of dreams. This conclusion does not necessarily follow and appears to be a jump of beliefsimilar to her basic premise that as a whole the psychoanalytic theory is valid and justified-a conclusion that creates large inconsistencies, leaving one puzzled and making one doubt the value of the author's exercise and contribution.
[Sidebar]
Edited by Jeannine Zoppi, Ph. D.
[Author Affiliation]
Marianne Horney Eckardt, M. D.
3066A Via Serena South
Laguna Hills, CA 92653
