Poems of the (un)conscious: a narrative approach to dream analysis

ABSTRACT

As a narrative therapist with an interest in psychoanalytic dream analysis, I have troubled myself for quite some time thinking of ways that dream-work can be introduced to my practice through the erudition of the narrative metaphor. However, in implying that the primary constituents of our thoughts and behaviours are not available to our conscious recollection and that they require an ‘expert’ to decipher their meanings, the psychoanalytic metaphor of the ‘unconscious’ and it’s corresponding treatment of the dream poses particular challenges to the de-centered posture of the narrative therapist. In this piece I thereby recruit Derrida’s ideas of the ‘poem’ and his treatment of the ‘unconscious’ to theorize a post-structuralist approach to dream work that can harmonize with the ethics of narrative practice. Becoming of this exploration is a ‘map’ of dream analysis that supports therapists to approach dream life from the position of the bricoleur: a posture that values clients as the author of the dreams possibilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative therapy
• de-centered practice
• dream analysis
• the unconscious
• post-structuralism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The author confirms that the data supporting the findings of this piece are available within the article.

Notes

1 It is important to follow this suggestion through noting that such a hypothesis is generally insignificant to the metaphor of the poem that I am proposing here, for the poem metaphor is much better gleaned as method of ‘analysis’ than a ‘theory’ about dream life.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph Mellor

Joseph Mellor is a counsellor working at The Rosa Counselling Trust and Northcote Intermediate School in Auckland, New Zealand. He holds qualifications in the fields of Psychology (BA), Counselling (PGDipEd), and Psychotherapy (GradDipHSc) and is currently completing his Masters in Narrative therapy and Community Work. Joseph has interests in the traditions of post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, feminism, and narrative therapy, and wields a particular passion for working therapeutically with young people and enlisting narrative practices to support the liberatory potential of the tradition.