Reverie and Interpretation

Abstract

The analyst's reverie experience constitutes an indispensable avenue to the understanding and interpretation of the transference-countertransference and yet is perhaps the dimension of the analyst's experience that feels least worthy of scrutiny. Reverie takes the most mundane, personal, and private of shapes, often involving the minutiae of everyday life. Although the analyst's reveries are personal psychological events, I view them as unconscious intersubjective constructions generated by analyst and analysand. Three analytic sessions are discussed to illustrate the ways in which reveries are experienced as well as the process by which the analyst attempts to make use of this aspect of his or her experience.