Dreams: royal road but challenging journey.

A discussion of "Dream Analysis in the Treatment of an Eleven-Year-Old Boy" by Harold M. Voth, M.D. This discussion endeavors to make three points: (1) Advances in ego psychology have led to a shift in technique from the content interpretation of dreams to the ego-defense analysis of intrapsychic conflict, using dreams and associations to them as raw data in that process. Questions are raised as to how thoroughly Dr. Voth completed this process with his patient. (2) Transference and countertransference elements seem to have been overlooked; there is evidence of the mutual expression of transference-countertransference issues within the relationship. (3) Perhaps it is better to describe what Dr. Voth offered the young patient as a corrective emotional experience, rather than as a truly psychoanalytic one.