Dreams in the Analytic Process:
Patients’ dreams as an objective commentary about the treatment

Saturday, November 15, 2025
10:00 am – 3:00 pm EST
a Zoom seminar led by Michael Conforti, PhD

Contact hours: 4 CE contact hours for Licensed NYS Social Workers, Psychoanalysts and Creative Arts Therapists for this program.

It is the way of dreams to give us more than we ask...They not only allowed us an insight
into the causes of the neurosis but afforded a prognosis as well. What is more, they showed us at what point the treatment should begin.
(Modern Man in Search of Soul, p. 5, C.G. Jung)

As Jung has taught us about the profound meaning of dreams and their ability to provide a deeply meaningful perspective about our life, this seminar builds on these insights while looking to the dream as offering an objective perspective on treatment. We will see how our clients’ dreams allow us to understand the nature, trajectory, and meaning of the treatment, and how the analyst may have become entrained and entwined within the patient’s personal and archetypal drama. Through illustrations of both patients’ and analysts’ dreams that occur from the beginning of treatment and throughout the analysis, we will come to an even greater appreciation of the dream’s capacity to provide an accurate commentary and needed corrective to the therapeutic process.

Required readings-
Threshold Experiences:  The Archetype of Beginnings  Conforti, M.  (2008)   Fisher King Press.
Modern Man in Search of Soul Jung  C.G.  (1933) Fl:  Harcourt Press.
The Way of the Image Kaufmann, Y.  (2009) Zahav Books.  NY

Learning Objectives:
Participants will be able to:

1. Identify the role of the initial dream in assessment of clients’ psychological needs and constellated archetypal dynamics.
2. Discuss the objective, non-transferential nature of dream material.
3. Recognize the symbolic, derivative representation of the analyst in dreams.
4. Discuss the dream’s objective commentary regarding the analysis.

Michael Conforti, PhD, is a Jungian analyst and the Founder and Director of the Assisi Institute. He is a faculty member at the C.G. Jung Institute – Boston and the C.G Jung Foundation of New York.  A pioneer in the field of matter-psyche studies, Dr. Conforti is actively investigating the workings of archetypal fields and the relationship between Jungian psychology and the New Sciences. He has presented his work at The C.G. Jung Institute - Zurich and Jungian organizations in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Indonesia, Italy, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, and Venezuela. He is the author of Threshold Experiences: The Archetype of Beginnings and Field, Form and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature & Psyche, which have been translated into Italian, Russian and Spanish.