Other Methods
The symbolic method held that dreams had to be considered in their entirety, and therefore are unified in their meanings. This gave way to very narrow interpretations. Individual events in the dreams didn't matter, only the dream a whole could properly represent the message. The method often was considered artful. Practitioners even went so far as to say that in order to properly interpret dreams, one needed to have a talent or gift at the method. Since the practice relied too much on a broad meaning and had relatively few people who were considered able to interpret, it was eventually dismissed on Freud.
The decoding method considered events and objects in dreams as symbols, which are translated into broader symbols using a key as a guide. The narrower view presents many challenges. No universal key exists, leaving symbols to mean different things to different interpreters. The method also only concentrated on the dreams themselves, disregarding the patients waking lives. Also considered arbitrary and imprecise, Freud dismissed the decoding method as well.
Read more about this topic: Psychoanalytic Dream Interpretation
Famous quotes containing the word methods:
“We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say—and to feel—”Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.””
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)
“I conceive that the leading characteristic of the nineteenth century has been the rapid growth of the scientific spirit, the consequent application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems with which the human mind is occupied, and the correlative rejection of traditional beliefs which have proved their incompetence to bear such investigation.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)