Horror in Dreams

A little late for Halloween, here are some quotes on the topic of horror from Hermes and His Children, by Rafael Lopez-Pedraza:

“An image of horror in dreams can be especially upsetting for a therapist without the background or attitude for dealing with it, believing with the faith of all believers that the patient is in a bad mental condition because of the horror images brought with him into psychotherapy; that the therapist’s office is to cure the patient’s illness by getting rid of the images of horror. There is no awareness that these very images arise, firstly, to compensate the patient’s nature and, secondly, to be recognized as an expression of the need for initiation through horror. Furthermore, I would suggest our aim should be to detect the horror image in the complex, not for diagnostic purposes, but to provide a view more suited to the patient’s nature. If, basically speaking, psychotherapy is to compensate, then we have to stick to the images of horror, for, even though we can neither understand them nor make much sense of them, it is these images which can compensate. All we can do is to withstand these images of horror, even when they appear profusely, until nature begins to metamorphose them into a more understandable psychic expression; for example, into a more commodious depression or individual view of life.” Pp. 166-167

“This evaluation of horror images offers a suggestion for psychotherapy, namely to conceive of them in terms of psychic-movers, contained in the memory (the main instrument of psychotherapy), and part of what is probably the psychotherapeutic virtue par excellence – Prudence. With the help of Prudence we can evaluate more accurately the image of horror in relation to the personality of the patient. It is Prudence that moves us into the art of dosage: dosing the image carefully and then leaving it to be assimilated.” Pg. 167

“Ziegler centers his therapy of some morbidities in the reflection on and connection to death, and has chosen the traditional medieval image of the Todeshochzeit, the wedding of death, for this purpose. I would add that the image of marriage with death is valid for the therapy of any kind of illness. How to deal with and reflect the constellation of Todeshochzeit, especially in dreams, requires, however, all the therapist’s art, as does the imagery of rape, which is implicitly a wedding with death.” Pp. 170-171

“The appearance of an imagery of death in psychotherapy is always welcome to a psychotherapist who knows how essential it is for the psyche’s life.” Pg. 202