Abstract
I enjoyed reading On the functions of dreamtelling (Chistyakov, 2017) as I consider it to be a significant contribution to current thinking on the group analytic approach to relations between the personal and collective unconscious and groups. Dreamtelling is a neglected but important aspect of ‘dreaming’, which is the mechanism containing excessively threatening and exciting emotions, relations and situations. Although dreaming seems to actively digest these affective issues 24/7 in a first autonomous step, especially during sleeping, it will create the dreams which picture this elaboration.
If dreamers have a partner (individual, group) with whom sharing the dream can further promote its elaboration, a second step of the digestion process is launched. Thus, it seems important to differentiate between ‘dreaming’ alone and later remembering dreams (which is often also connected to relations), because this development is about relations, and dreamtelling is always a ‘dreaming together’ the remembered dream. Dreamtelling is always to do with relations; both the ability of processing emotions and the ability to influence relations are dependent on interpersonal communication and the partner’s willingness to assist the elaboration.
‘Dreaming’ as an independent mechanism, considered by some to be the holy place of autonomy, is also a question which this article raises between the lines. It may be true that the ‘dreaming’ mechanism is not as independent as we would like to think. It is not only influenced by feelings of others (not only by other’s dreams) but actually the ‘dreaming’ apparatus may be ‘used’ (Winnicott, 1969) by connected others (group members, therapists, family members) to ‘dream’ a specific issue they are not able to process by themselves.
Thus, the conductor should be aware that one group member may dream ‘for another’ (always also for her/himself) an—aspect of ‘dreaming’ and ‘dreamtelling’ which opens a whole elaborative space in the group. The author of the article mentions projective identification as the mechanism through which the emotional influence in the group happens. I would also add that it would be interesting to discuss this influence in connection to the intersubjective mechanism which Foulkes’ (1948) conceptualized as ‘transpersonal’. Can emotions go (‘trans’) through related humans and influence others, without especially needing an identification mechanism?
Under these premises, the author continues to describe the group’s developmental conditions under which dreamtelling happens. The issue of group developmental steps is not a simple one in group analysis. Clinicians know that in a slow open group that continuously separates and includes new members, the group’s developmental stages are far from being as clear cut as demonstrated in university research. In spite of this, I feel that the discussion in the article opens up a crucial aspect in need of exploration: the connection between the development of relations and the ability to be in a significant unconscious exchange. Thus it stresses the possibility that dreamtelling and its potential partnership with others, is also dependent upon deep interactions between the individual and his or her group. It seems clear from the article that attention must be given to the possibility that in different emotional phases the possibility of being in touch with more intimate, unconscious personal and social aspects of ‘others’ may vary considerably and may also depend upon the conductor’s ability to understand these processes.
The other element described by the author, especially in the examples, is how dreamtelling impacts the social positioning between group members. A member, who was experiencing exclusion dangers in the group, changed his position in the group by sharing a dream and involving the group in processing it. Especially interesting is the fact that the authors do not describe the dreams’ contents in their examples. It probably is a didactic approach—but one may get the feeling that dreamtelling would be a process disconnected from the dream content. In the practice of working with dreams I think it is a valid phase: after looking at the dreamtelling from an informative (or formative) side, the ‘transformative’ questions follow. Usually, only later, the group as well as the conductor, ask themselves what would be the unconscious dreamer’s request for containment from the group, and what would be the dreamer’s unconscious demand for influence on the relations? Theoretically, though, the interesting fact that there is no description of any content, seems difficult to digest. Maybe the authors have taken the theory of dreamtelling, differentiating totally between content and process a step further.
The group reacts to the dream’s contents as well to the dreamer’s sharing—and exchange with the group poly-phony—which is described by the author between the lines. The therapist’s authority in the group, especially in the case of dreams, is of ‘preparation’ towards resisting his omnipotence or wishes for superiority (Friedman, 2002: 64). While much of the transformations in therapy result from the therapist’s processing difficult emotions, his task is to share this endeavour with the other group members. The well prepared group conductor shares the containment process of difficult emotions with the group. The sentence that group analysis is performed ‘by the group, of the group, including the conductor’ (Foulkes, 1975: 3) is never more true than working on a dream in the group.
The author interprets the dreamer’s attempts to be guided by the positive aspects of their childhood relationship with the relations to their mother . . . or to the ‘maternal’. While this seems very far from our conscious experience, I think it deserves future consideration, because often we experience in groups that dreamtelling feels connected sometimes to maternal and at other times to paternal aspects.