bout how dreams should be interpreted. Freud's theories emphasized early childhood experience and repressed sexual and aggressive drives. Thus, Freud theorized that dreams looked backward and served to reveal repressed infantile wishes. For example, Freud gives the following interpretations of popular symbols: "Paths, ladders or staircases, or as the case may be, walking up or down them, are representations of the sexual act" or "Children in dreams often stand for genitals; and indeed, both men and women are in the habit of referring to their genitals affectionately as their 'little ones'" (Rand and Torok, 1995, p. 571). Jung's mystical approach to dream interpretation was subsequently overshadowed by Freud's theories in the psychiatric community.
Jung believed that dreams pointed forward and often presented guiding images that were helpful in the patient's development toward wholeness. Dreams, which held the key to personal integration, could be interpreted not only from the patient's personal experience, but from a mythological perspective as well. During the course of his professional career, Jung not only analyzed tens of thousands of his patient's dreams, he regularly analyzed and found guidance from his own: "Dreams, fantasies, and parapsychological phenomena were always to play a great role in Jung's life, especially when he had to make an important decision" (Hall and Nordby, 1973, p. 21). Jung's emphasis on dreams has carried over into current analytical psychotherapy practice: "Jungian analysts, more than any other group of psychotherapists, probably, are occupied
...