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The Clinic of the Dream​

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In this seminar participants will present clinical sessions that include dreams.  Following Freud and Lacan, we will consider the dream as a rupture of the unconscious from an Other scene, not as a narrative with a hidden meaning.  The seminar will consider the field of the Other and the place of the analyst in guiding the analysand to hear the rupture of a dream and its signifiers through the fundamental rule of free association.

 

We invite participants to bring something close to verbatim sessions that include dreams and dream fragments. What rupture may have constructed the dream?  What signifiers already present in the analysis did it evoke or elaborate?  If there is a navel in the dream, what is the navel?  If the dream is a nightmare, where was it interrupted?  Is there a second navel created around the associations?  What drives of the body may have been mobilized?  

 

The case we are exploring here is not a case study of the patient, but the case of the-analyst-in training working under constraints of the Lacanian clinic and transference.  We will ask presenters to speak about each time the analyst speaks or remains silent, and to explain these interventions in the unfolding dream work.  We will also ask for the subsequent session, including any new dream, so that we can learn something of the effects of the interventions.

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Respecting the limits of language and the unknown unsayable that comes with dreams, we will listen to the presenter in the place of the analyst speaking to the logic that is at work in her or his interventions. The aim of the seminar is to develop a condensed 10-minute writing that highlights the dream logic.

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As a condition of joining the seminar, everyone will sign a confidentiality agreement. Limited to 8 participants presenting, but others may join to learn about the clinic of the dream.

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We ask seminar participants to read or re-read the following foundational texts prior to our first meeting.  Additional readings may be added during the year.  

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Freud, S. (1915-16). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XV: Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Part II).

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Freud, S. (1933). New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis. The  Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud,  Volume XXII (1932-1936): New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis and Other Works, Lecture XXIX Revision of the Theory of Dreams (pages 6-29). 

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Faculty: Diana Cuello, PhD, Analyst of the School, and Annie Rogers, PhD, Analyst of the School

Dates and Times:  Monthly, September to April, 1st Fridays, 9-11 AM Pacific Time

Location: On Zoom, by invitation

Fee: $500 or School Tuition

Contact:  Diana Cuello at dianacuellophd@gmail.com; Annie Rogers at anniegrogers@gmail.com

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Annie Rogers, Ph.D. Annie G. Rogers, Ph.D., is Analyst, Faculty and Supervising Analyst of the Lacanian School of San Francisco. She is also Associate Member of the Association for Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy in Ireland and Professor Emerita of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Psychology at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Dr. Rogers has a psychoanalytic practice in Amherst, Massachusetts. A recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland; a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University; a Whiting Fellowship at Hampshire College; and an Erikson Scholar at Austen Riggs; she is the author of A Shining Affliction (Penguin Viking, 1995) and The Unsayable (Random House, 2006), in addition to numerous scholarly articles, short fiction, and poetry. Her most recent book is Incandescent Alphabets: Psychosis and the Enigma of Language (Karnac Books in 2016).

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Diana C. Cuello, PhD is an Analyst of the School, member of the Lacan school of psychoanalysis since 2018. She earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Duquesne University in 2011. Her interests include aesthetics and performance art, particularly with relation to dreams and their use in analytic clinical work. Diana is currently investigating the value of encountering castration provided exclusively by the limitations of the virtual medium. She is in private practice, aiming to provide a psychoanalytic experience over phone and video.