Dream and Rorschach test: diagnostic and psychotherapeutical function

CD_065_Levy et Alii

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Summary. This paper proposes an analysis about the possibility to consider the dual function, diagnostic and therapeutic, whether of dreams or of projective materials obtained by psychodiagnostic test of the patient, since they both represent some original and spontaneous expressions of conscious and unconscious needs, trends, feelings, emotions and cognitive elaborations of external or internal stimuli. Although Freud’s contributions on dream, as many of his insights, had an essential role in the development of psychological knowledge, today the idea of a diagnostic power of dreams appears restricted if it is compared with the perspective value of this material in the therapeutic set, particularly for the revelation of the creative Self. According to the “soft finalism” of Individual Psychology, the Rorschach answers may also allow the overcoming of a rigid diagnostic classification, leading to understand the personality as dynamically tended towards aim, rather than imprisoned in the consequences of not satisfied needs.