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Dreamwork in the Psychodynamic Perspective
Sigmund Freud's theory of Psychoanalysis is largely based on the importance of the unconscious mind. According to the theory, the unconscious does not only affect a person during the day, but also in dreams. In the psychodynamic perspective, the transferring of unconscious thoughts into consciousness is called dreamwork.. In dreams, there are two different types of content, the manifest and latent content. The latent content is the underlying, unconscious feelings and thoughts. The manifest content is made up of a combination of the latent thoughts and it is what is actually being seen in the dream. According to Carl Jung's principle of compensation, the reason that there is latent content in dreams is because the unconscious is making up for the limitations of the conscious mind. Since the conscious mind cannot be aware of all things at once, the latent content allows for these hidden away thoughts to be unlocked. Psychoanalysts use the knowledge of the process of dreamwork to analyze dreams. In other words, the clinician will study the manifest content to understand what the latent content is trying to say.

Process of Dreamwork
To be able to understand dreamwork fully, one must understand how the mind transfers the latent thoughts to manifest. The first step is called condensation, and it is the combining of different unconscious thought into one. The combining of the unconscious thoughts makes it easier for the mind to express them in the dream. The step of condensation has two sub-steps, day residues and censorship. Day residues are left over daily issues that bring up some unconscious thought. The mind then displays this thought through a similar situation from the day. Before the unconscious thoughts can be displayed, they are censored. Since many unconscious thoughts do not follow the moral code of society, the mind changes them to be more respectful. This is done so that it does not cause the dreamer anxiety and therefore wake them up. It is also due to censorship that multiple unconscious thoughts are combined, since it is hard to just have one slip through.

After condensation, another step in the formation of dreams is displacement. This is where the dream directs feelings or desires onto an unrelated subject. This is similar to the practice of transference, which is a common technique used in psychoanalysis. Another step in the formation of dreams is symbolism. Objects or situations in your dream, actually represent something else, commonly an unconscious thought or desire. An example may be that in your dream you burned the dinner you were cooking for your parents. This may actually represent your fear of failing them. The fourth and final step in formation is secondary revision. In this step, all the thoughts are put together and are made coherent. Also another point of this step is to make the dream relate to the dreamer. These four steps put together make up dreamwork.

Dreamworkers
People who study the formation of dreams and then analyze them are called dreamwork interpreters. As mentioned before, dreamwork interpreters must work backwards from the conscious to the unconscious. Since they are not the ones who saw the dream, they use free association with their clients. Free association is where the client describes the dream and relates as many aspects of it to their life as possible. The interpreter listens intently and once they have gained all the information about the manifest content of the dream, they are able to analyze the results. While the interpreters are listening they are looking for slips of the tongues. This allows the interpreter to gain information about the client that they may not be aware of or be willing to share.