Dream Psychology

First published in 1920, 'Dream Psychology' is an audacious masterpiece of Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist and the founding father of psychoanalysis, a method for treating mental illness and also a theory that explains human behavior. Freud believed that events in our childhood hold a great impact on our adult lives, shaping our personality. In creating psychoanalysis, Freud designed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central role in the analytic process. Freud's analysis of dreams as wish-fulfilments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the mechanisms of repression as well as for elaboration of his theory of the unconscious. Freud postulated the existence of libido, an energy with which mental processes and structures are invested and which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of compulsive repetition, hate, aggression, and neurotic guilt. In his later work, Freud developed a wide-ranging interpretation and critique of religion and culture.