Workshop presented by Deborah Luepnitz, Ph.D. Freud believed that dream work is the “royal road” to the unconscious, and he called The Interpretation of Dreams his “best and most important book.” While the “Relational turn” of the 1980s enhanced the field in several ways– reviving an interest in trauma, redefining counter-transference, and exploring the categories of race and gender, some have asked if dream work was eclipsed in the process. Will this skill be lost to future generations?

We will begin by reviewing the classical method of dream interpretation, which continues to structure the presenter’s work. However, Freud had very little to say about color, and nothing about race. With the use of clinical examples, we will see how reflecting on color and race in the unconscious can help patients grapple with questions of identity, self, and other.