Dream analysis in the psychodynamic psychotherapy of borderline patients.

Despite Freud's dictum that dreams are the royal road to the unconscious, the use of dream analysis by therapists working with Borderline Personality Disorder and other severe psychiatric conditions has in the past two decades has fallen into a state of decline, if not outright neglect. The reasons why are not altogether clear, though some have said that the growing popularity of ego psychology and other movements in the domain of psychoanalysis have perhaps pushed dream analysis to one side. To me this marginalization seems unjustified. I hope to demonstrate in this article the enduring utility of dream analysis in working with the more severely disordered patients, with the aim of revivifying its application--and its efficacy--in our work with such patients.