https://doi.org/10.4081/ripppo.2021.545
Dreaming the unrepressed unconscious and beyond: repression vs dissociation in the oneiric functioning of severe patients
Submitted: March 22, 2021
Accepted: May 31, 2021
Published: August 12, 2021
Accepted: May 31, 2021
Abstract Views: 8398
PDF: 1450
HTML: 426
HTML: 426
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Authors
Starting with Freud and Jung, dreams have always been considered a core source of information for psychoanalysis. Nowadays, neuroscientific findings suggest that dreams are related especially to limbic and right emotional brain circuit, and that during REM stages they engage self-related and visual internally generated processing. These neuroscientific findings together with contemporary psychoanalysis suggest that dreams are related to the sense of self and serve the purpose of re-integrating and re-structuring the integrity of the psyche. However, while dreams are still viewed as ‘the via regia to the unconscious’, it is the unconscious that has been reconsidered. The repressed unconscious seems to be related with left brain activity while the unrepressed unconscious based on dissociation seems to be associated with limbic and cortical areas of the right hemisphere. This notion of the unconscious might be seen as an implicit self-system encoded in the right brain that evolves in the interaction with a primary caregiver developing through preverbal and bodily stages of maturation enhanced by signals of dual communication. What kind of dreams for which unconscious? What are the differences regarding the capacity to dream for neurotic and borderline personality organizations? Our research aims to integrate psychodynamics, infant research, and neuroscientific findings to better understand the role of dreams in the assessment and treatment of, especially, traumatized and borderline patients. The capacity to dream is here proposed as a sort of enacted manifestation of emotional memories for the development of a more cohesive, coherent and symbolic vs fragmented, diffuse and alexithymic sense of self.
Anderson, M. C., Ochsner, K. N., Kuhl, B., Cooper, J., Robertson, E., Gabrieli, S. W., ... & Gabrieli, J. D. (2004). Neural systems underlying the suppression of unwanted memories. Science, 303(5655), 232-235.
Atzil, S., Gao, W., Fradkin, I., & Barrett, L. F. (2018). Growing a social brain. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(9), 624-636.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0384-6
Atzil, S., & Barrett, L. F. (2017). Social regulation of allostasis: Commentary on ‘Mentalizing homeostasis: The social origins of interoceptive inference’ by Fotopoulou and Tsakiris. Neuropsychoanalysis, 19(1), 29-33.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2017.1295214
Benedetti, F., Poletti, S., Radaelli, D., Ranieri, R., Genduso, V., Cavallotti, S., ... & D’Agostino, A. (2015). Right hemisphere neural activations in the recall of waking fantasies and of dreams. Journal of sleep research, 24(5), 576-582.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12299
Bennett, M. R., & Hacker, P. M. S. (2005). Emotion and cortical-subcortical function: conceptual developments. Progress in Neurobiology, 75(1), 29-52.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pneurobio.2004.11.002
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss, v. 3 (Vol. 1). London: Hogarth Press.
Braun, A. R., Balkin, T. J., Wesensten, N. J., Gwadry, F., Carson, R. E., Varga, M., ... & Herscovitch, P. (1998). Dissociated pattern of activity in visual cortices and their projections during human rapid eye movement sleep. Science, 279(5347), 91-95.
Bromberg, P. M. (2011). The shadow of the tsunami and the growth of the relational mind. New York, NY: Routledge.
Bucci, W. (1997). Psychoanalysis and cognitive science: A multiple code theory. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Burgess, N., Maguire, E. A., & O’Keefe, J. (2002). The human hippocampus and spatial and episodic memory. Neuron, 35(4), 625-641.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0896-6273(02)00830-9
Cabré, L. J. M. (2011). La funzione traumatolitica del sogno. Rivista di Psicoanalisi, 57(2), 395-399.
Christoff, K., Irving, Z. C., Fox, K. C., Spreng, R. N., & Andrews-Hanna, J. R. (2016). Mind-wandering as spontaneous thought: a dynamic framework. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17(11), 718-731.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2016.113
Craparo, G., & Mucci, C. (Eds.). (2018). Unrepressed unconscious, implicit memory, and clinical work. London: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429484629
Craig, A. D. (2010). The sentient self. Brain structure and function, 214, 563-577.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-010-0248-y
Damasio, A. R. (1999). How the brain creates the mind. Scientific American, 281(6), 112-117.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1299-112
Dang-Vu, T. T. (2012). Neuronal oscillations in sleep: insights from functional neuroimaging. Neuromolecular medicine, 14(3), 154-167.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12017-012-8166-1
De Gennaro, L., Cipolli, C., Cherubini, A., Assogna, F., Cacciari, C., Marzano, C., ... & Spalletta, G. (2011). Amygdala and hippocampus volumetry and diffusivity in relation to dreaming. Human brain mapping, 32(9), 1458-1470.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.21120
Dewan, E. M. (1970). The programming (P) hypothesis for REM sleep. In Ernest Harmann (Eds.), Sleep and dreaming (Vol. 7, pp. 295-307). Boston: Little Brown.
Domhoff, G. W., & Fox, K. C. (2015). Dreaming and the default network: A review, synthesis, and counterintuitive research proposal. Consciousness and cognition, 33, 342-353.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2015.01.019
Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1944). Endopsychic structure considered in terms of object-relationships. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 25, 70-92.
Ferenczi, S. (1910). The psychological analysis of dreams. The American Journal of Psychology, 21(2), 309-328.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1413005
Fonagy, P., & Target, M. (1997). Attachment and reflective function: Their role in self-organization. Developmental Psychopathology, 9(4), 679-700.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579497001399
Fox, K. C., Nijeboer, S., Solomonova, E., Domhoff, G. W., & Christoff, K. (2013). Dreaming as mind wandering: evidence from functional neuroimaging and first-person content reports. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 7, 412.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00412
Fox, K. C., & Girn, M. (2018). 28 Neural Correlates of Self-Generated Imagery and Cognition Throughout the Sleep Cycle. The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought: Mind-Wandering, Creativity, and Dreaming, 371.
Freud, S. (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams. SE 4, pp. ix-627. London: Hogarth.
Freud, S. (1915). The unconscious. S. E., 14: 166-204. London: Hogarth.
Freud, S. (1920). Al di là del principio di piacere. In OSF, vol. IX. Torino:Bollati Boringhieri, 1989.
Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. S. E., 19: 12-59. London: Hogarth
Gallagher, S. (2005). Dynamic models of body schematic processes. Advances in consciousness research, 62, 233.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/aicr.62.15gal
Ginot, E. (2015). The Neuropsychology of the Unconscious: Integrating Brain and Mind in Psychotherapy (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology). New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.
Hobson, J. A. (2009). REM sleep and dreaming: towards a theory of protoconsciousness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(11), 803-813
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2716
Joseph, R. (1996). Neuropsychiatry, neuropsychology, and clinical neuroscience: Emotion, evolution, cognition, language, memory, brain damage, and abnormal behaviour. New York, NY: Williams & Wilkins Co.
Jung, C. G. (2013). Dream Analysis 1: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-30. London: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203754290
Jung, C. H. (2014). Collected works of CG Jung, Volume 8: Structure & dynamics of the psyche. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400850860
Kernberg, O. F. (1975). Borderline conditions and pathological narcissism. New York, NY: Aronson.
Kernberg, O. F. (1984). Severe personality disorders: Psychotherapeutic strategies. New Haven, CT: Yale UP.
Kohut, H. (1977). La guarigione del Sè [The restoration of the self]. Torino: Boringhieri (1980).
Kohut, H. (1971). The analysis of the self. A systematic approach to the psychoanalytic treatment of personality disorders. New York, NY: International Universities Press.
LeDoux, J. E. (2000). Emotion circuits in the brain. Annual review of neuroscience, 23(1), 155-184.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.neuro.23.1.155
Leuzinger-Bohleber, M. (2018). Finding the body in the mind: Embodied memories, trauma, and depression. London: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429474781
Lingiardi, V., & Mucci, C. (2014). Da Janet a Bromberg, passando per Ferenczi. Psichiatria e psicoterapia, 33(1).
Lingiardi, V., & McWilliams, N. (Eds.). (2017). Psychodynamic diagnostic manual: PDM-2. New York, NY: Guilford Publications.
Liotti, G. (2004). Trauma, dissociation, and disorganized attachment: Three strands of a single braid. Psychotherapy: Theory, research, practice, training, 41(4), 472.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-3204.41.4.472
Mancia, M. (2006). Implicit memory and early unrepressed unconscious: Their role in the therapeutic process (How the neurosciences can contribute to psychoanalysis) 1. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 87(1), 83-103.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1516/39M7-H9CE-5LQX-YEGY
Mancia, M. (Ed.). (2007). Psychoanalysis and neuroscience. Springer Science & Business Media
Menon, V., & Uddin, L. Q. (2010). Saliency, switching, attention and control: a network model of insula function. Brain structure and function, 214(5-6), 655-667.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-010-0262-0
Moser, U., & von Zeppelin, I. (1996). Dergeträumte Traum. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Mucci, C. (2013). Beyond individual and collective trauma: Intergenerational transmission, psychoanalytic treatment, and the dynamics of forgiveness. New York & London: Routledge.
Mucci, C. (2014). Trauma e perdono. Una prospettiva psicoanalitica internazionale. Milano: Raffaello Cortina.
Mucci, C. (2017). Implicit memory, unrepressed unconscious, and trauma theory: The turn of the screw between contemporary psychoanalysis and neuroscience. In G. Craparo, C. Mucci (Eds.), Unrepressed unconscious, implicit memory and clinical work (pp. 99-129). London: Karnac.
Mucci, C. (2018a). Borderline Bodies: Affect Regulation Therapy for Personality Disorders (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology). New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.
Mucci, C. (2018b). Partecipazione affettiva dell’analista e testimonianza incarnata. The Wisebaby. Il poppante saggio. Rivista del rinascimento ferencziano, 2, 167-183.
Mucci, C. (2020). Corpi Borderline. Regolazione affettiva e clinica dei disturbi di personalità. Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore srl.
Mucci, C., Craparo, G., & Lingiardi, V. (2019). From Janet to Bromberg, via Ferenczi Standing in the spaces of the literature on dissociation. In Craparo, G., Ortu, F., van der Hart, O. (Eds). Rediscovering Pierre Janet (pp. 75-92). New York, NY: Routledge.
Mucci, C, Scalabrini, A. (2021) Traumatic effects beyond diagnosis: The impact of dissociation on the mind-body-brain system. Psychoanalytic Psychology, doi:10.1037/pap0000332.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/pap0000332
Mucci, C. (2021a). Dissociation vs Repression: A New Neuropsychoanalytic Model for Psychopathology. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 81(1), 82-111. doi:10.1057/s11231-021-09279-x.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-021-09279-x
Mucci, C. (2021b). A right-brain dissociative model for right-brain disorders: Dissociation vs repression in borderline and other severe psychopathologies of early traumatic origin. In R. Tweedy (Ed.), The Divided Therapist. Hemispheric Difference and Contemporary Psychotherapy. London: Routledge.
Nalbantian, S. (2011). The memory process: neuroscientific and humanistic perspectives. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Northoff, G. (2011). Neuropsychoanalysis in Practice: Brain, Self and Objects. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199599691.001.0001
Northoff, G., & Huang, Z. (2017). How do the brain’s time and space mediate consciousness and its different dimensions? Temporo-spatial theory of consciousness (TTC). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 80, 630-645
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.07.013
Northoff, G. (2016). Is the self a higher-order or fundamental function of the brain? The ‘basis model of self-specificity’ and its encoding by the brain’s spontaneous activity. Cognitive neuroscience, 7(1-4), 203-222.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17588928.2015.1111868
Northoff, G. (2018). How does the brain’s spontaneous activity generate our thoughts? The spatiotemporal theory of task-unrelated thought (STTT). In Christoff, K. & Fox, C.R. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought: Mind-Wandering, Creativity, and Dreaming (pp. 55-70). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Padel, J. (1978). Object relational approach. In: Fosshage, J. & Loew, C.A (Eds.), Dream interpretation: A comparative study, Revised Edition (pp. 125-148). New York, NY: PMA Publishing Corp.
Panksepp, J., & Biven, L. (2012). The archaeology of mind: neuroevolutionary origins of human emotions (Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology). New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.
Qin, P., Wang, M., & Northoff, G. (2020). Linking Bodily, Environmental and Mental States In the Self-A Three-level Model Based on A Meta-analysis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 115, 77-95.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.05.004
Scalabrini, A., Mucci, C., & Northoff, G. (2018). Is our self-related to personality? A neuropsychodynamic model. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 12, 346.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00346
Scalabrini, A., Vai, B., Poletti, S., Damiani, S., Mucci, C., Colombo, C., Zanardi, R., Benedetti F. & Northoff, G. (2020). All roads lead to the default-mode network - global source of DMN abnormalities in major depressive disorder. Neuropsychopharmacology, 45(12), 2058-2069.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-020-0785-x
Scarone, S., Manzone, M. L., Gambini, O., Kantzas, I., Limosani, I., D’Agostino, A., & Hobson, J. A. (2008). The dream as a model for psychosis: an experimental approach using bizarreness as a cognitive marker. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 34(3), 515-522.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbm116
Schore, A. N. (2011). The right brain implicit self lies at the core of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic dialogues, 21(1), 75-100.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10481885.2011.545329
Schore, A. N. (2012). The science of the art of psychotherapy (Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology). New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.
Siclari, F., Baird, B., Perogamvros, L., Bernardi, G., LaRocque, J. J., Riedner, B., ... & Tononi, G. (2017). The neural correlates of dreaming. Nature neuroscience, 20(6), 872.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4545
Siclari, F., Bernardi, G., Cataldi, J., & Tononi, G. (2018). Dreaming in NREM sleep: a high-density EEG study of slow waves and spindles. Journal of Neuroscience, 38(43), 9175-9185.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0855-18.2018
Siegel, D. J. (1999). The developing mind: Toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Solms, M. (1995). New findings on the neurological organization of dreaming: Implications for psychoanalysis. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 64(1), 43-67.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/21674086.1995.11927443
Solms, M. (2020). New project for a scientific psychology: General scheme. Neuropsychoanalysis, 1-31.
Stern, D. N. (1985). The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York, NY: Routledge.
Stickgold, R., & Walker, M. P. (2007). Sleep-dependent memory consolidation and reconsolidation. Sleep medicine, 8(4), 331-343.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2007.03.011
Stickgold, R., Hobson, J. A., Fosse, R., & Fosse, M. (2001). Sleep, learning, and dreams: off-line memory reprocessing. Science, 294(5544), 1052-1057.
Stolorow, R. D., & Atwood, G. E. (1989). The unconscious and unconscious fantasy: An intersubjective‐developmental perspective. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 9(3), 364-374.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07351698909533773
Strachey, J. (1961). Editor’s introduction. In: S. Freud. (1923). The ego and the id. SE 19, 3-11. London, Hogarth Press.
Sui, J., & Humphreys, G. W. (2015). The integrative self: How self-reference integrates perception and memory. Trends in cognitive sciences, 19(12), 719-728.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2015.08.015
Tsakiris, M. (2017). The multisensory basis of the self: from body to identity to others. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70(4), 597-609.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2016.1181768
Zilio, F., Gomez-Pilar, J., Cao, S., Zhang, J., Zang, D., Qi, Z., ... & Northoff, G. (2021). Are intrinsic neural timescales related to sensory processing? Evidence from abnormal behavioral states. NeuroImage, 226, 117579.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117579
Zilio, F. (2020). Consciousness and World. A Neurophilosophical and Neuroethical Account. Pisa: Edizioni ETS.
How to Cite
Scalabrini, A., Esposito, R., & Mucci, C. (2021). Dreaming the unrepressed unconscious and beyond: repression <em>vs</em> dissociation in the oneiric functioning of severe patients. Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome, 24(2). https://doi.org/10.4081/ripppo.2021.545
Copyright (c) 2021 the Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.
Similar Articles
- Margarida Pedroso de Lima, Isabel Albuquerque, Paulo Jorge Martins, António-José Gonzalez, Personal Projects Analysis as an idiographic approach in psychotherapy: an exploratory study , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 26 No. 1 (2023)
- Paula Dagnino, Carola Pèrez, Adriana Gòmez, Sergio Gloger, Mariane Krause, Depression and attachment: how do personality styles and social support influence this relation? , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 20 No. 1 (2017)
- Rolf Sandell, Rating the outcomes of psychotherapy or psychoanalysis using the Change After Psychotherapy (CHAP) scales. Manual and commentary , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 18 No. 2 (2015): Special issue on Qualitative and Quantitative Research in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy: part 1
- Claudia Capella, Loreto Rodrìguez, Daniela Aguila, Denise Dussert, Ximena Lama, Carolina Gutierrez, Gretchen Beiza, Storied images of psychotherapeutic change: approaching children's voices through drawings , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 18 No. 2 (2015): Special issue on Qualitative and Quantitative Research in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy: part 1
- Ines Moragrega, René Bridler, Christine Mohr, Michela Possenti, Deborah Rochat, Judit Sanchez Parramon, Hans H. Stassen, Monitoring the effects of therapeutic interventions in depression through self-assessments , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 24 No. 3 (2021)
- Kelsey Armusewicz, Miriam Steele, Howard Steele, Anne Murphy, Assessing therapist and clinician competency in parent-infant psychotherapy: The REARING coding system (RCS) for the group attachment based intervention (GABI) , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 25 No. 1 (2022)
- Alessandro Talia, Anna Georg, Björn Siepe, Salvatore Gullo, Madeleine Miller-Bottome, Jana Volkert, Corinne Neukel, Michael Kaess, Felix Bempohl, Sabine C. Herpertz, Svenja Taubner, An exploratory study on how attachment classifications manifest in group psychotherapy , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 25 No. 3 (2022): SPECIAL ISSUE: "Group psychotherapy: between settled benchmarks and new horizons"
- Vera Békés, Claire J. Starrs, J. Christopher Perry, Tracy A. Prout, Ciro Conversano, Mariagrazia Di Giuseppe, Defense mechanisms are associated with mental health symptoms across six countries , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 26 No. 3 (2023)
- Hemrie Zalman, Katie Aafjes-van Doorn, Catherine F. Eubanks, Alliance challenges in the treatment of a narcissistic patient: the case of Alex , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 22 No. 2 (2019)
- Victoria Klimkowski, Sofia McRae, Alexia Blick, Laurence Beaulieu, J. Reese S. Handley, Anara A. Hopley, Caroline A. Hyde, Devika M. Jain, Sylvia Kolodziejczyk, Josiane Laliberté, Alexa Lévesque, Lara M. Masri, Anya M. Monet, Reagan S. Nediu, Rachel Valihrach, Giorgio Tasca, Models of practice and training in psychotherapy: cross-national perspectives from Italy and Canada , Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome: Vol. 27 No. 1 (2024)
<< < 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 > >>
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.
