Aspects of Insight in Working with Children’s Dreams

ABSTRACT

This article examines clinical and theoretical aspects of insight as a therapeutic tool in the analysis of dreams of children and adolescents. Suggestions are offered for creative ways of engaging the child’s interest in dreamwork. Although some analysts have thought that little can be accomplished by working with dreams in the analysis of children, I demonstrate that gaining access to unconscious conflicts, working in the context of transference, and deepening the material through the use of insight has a salutary effect on the child or adolescent patient.

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Anita G. Schmukler

Anita G. Schmukler, D.O., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Philadelphia Center for Psychoanalysis. She is a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, author of numerous papers and editor of several books.