Article

Transactional Analysis Journal

1-12
Group Imago and Dreamwork ª International Transactional Analysis
Association, 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0362153715597722
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Anna Emanuela Tangolo

Abstract
This article describes the use of dreamwork in group therapy and the analysis of dreams with a focus
on the evolution of the group imago over time. The model used involves exploratory analysis with an
emphasis on the creative process of the dream and the cocreation of the discussion about the dream
in the group. The author describes the way in which, in the process of deconfusion and healing, the
group imago is modified and differentiated by the script themes, thus enriching the inner and
interpersonal world of patients with new healing and integrative experiences. The dreamwork
method used follows the ethical rules described by Bowater and Sherrard (2011), summed up in
these keywords: ownership, respect, privacy, dialogue, meaning, and caution.

Keywords
dreamwork, group therapy, group imago, intersubjectivity, psychodynamic transactional analysis,
script, deconfusion, redecision

Our own experience shows us that clients’ and trainees’ dreams have considerable potential not only for
diagnosis, but also for healing. . . . This is because they arise spontaneously from inner sources, especially
at times of struggle or crisis. To ignore these dreams, or fail to respect them, is to deny a major psy-
chological reality of clients and the validity of their own spiritual resources. To work with dreams offers
clients an opportunity to observe their own inner processes and to develop a tool for self-healing.
(Bowater & Sherrard, 2011, p. 180)

Dreamwork and Psychotherapy: A Brief Historical Review

Berne (1957) wrote, ‘‘It is probable also that dreams have another function, and that is to assist in
healing the mind after emotional wounds and distressing emotional experiences’’ (p. 116). In trans-
actional analysis, we might say that it is the dreamer who writes the script. By this I mean that the
dream is constructed predominantly in the language of the Child ego state, in accordance with the
logic, emotive intensity, and decisional choices of the Little Professor (the precursor of the Adult ego
state or A1). This is the state of mind that decides the psychological script. Thus, in this sense, access
to dreams is fundamental for the discovery of the unconscious parts of the script and for revealing to
both patient and therapist how this Child mind works and has so much power over survival choices
and emotional decisions.

Corresponding Author:
Anna Emanuela Tangolo, Performat, via Giuntini, 25, 56023 Navacchio, Pisa, Italy.
Email: tangolo@performat.it
2 Transactional Analysis Journal

Much progress has been made in the history of Western psychoanalysis since the start of the
twentieth century when Freud (1900/1953) first observed that ‘‘the interpretation of dreams is the
royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind’’ (p. 608).
Taken up and enhanced by the reflections of Jung (1916/1960), Adler (1936), and other psycho-
analysts of their generation, the study of dreams soon led to an awareness that in addition to laying
bare the unconscious activities of the mind, they take on healing and integrative functions, consti-
tuting a veritable problem-solving ally for the dreamer’s ego. From the 1950s onward, Fromm
(1951) and Hartmann (1973, 1996), among others, contributed greatly to the systematization of these
intuitions.
Since then, more recent studies on the theme of mentalization (Allen & Fonagy, 2006; Fonagy,
2001) and its specific application to dreams (Fosshage, 1987) have opened up new horizons. On the
specific theme of dreams and group therapy, it is worth mentioning the recent publication of the col-
lective volume edited by Neri, Pines, and Friedman (2002). More generally, among the recent and
meaningful pronouncements of psychoanalysis is the reflection by Siegel (1999) on the relational-
intersubjective dimension and developments regarding neuropsychoanalysis studies.
Since Berne, there have been many significant contributions to the transactional analysis litera-
ture concerning the analysis of dreams. Among the most active authors of the 1970s and 1980s, I
here mention the contributions of Goulding and Goulding (1979), Jongeward and Scott (1984),
Thomson (1987), James and Jongeward (1971/1996), Erskine (1997), Scilligo (1990), and Novellino
(2012). In recent years it has been Bowater (2001, 2003, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013; Bowater & Sher-
rard, 1999, 2011) who has provided the greatest contribution to the analysis of dreams in her com-
parison of the transactional analytic experience with the most recent research studies on dreams in
both the neuroscientific and psychodynamic fields.
The theme of the ‘‘script dream,’’ which was introduced by Berne in What Do You Say After You
Say Hello? (1972, pp. 172-175), clarifies the psychodynamic perspective from which our observa-
tion starts. The script dream has nothing to do with the patient’s real life but, rather, uses a figurative
image to describe the close limits within which a person is confined by script decisions. The ‘‘con-
centration camp’’ or the patient’s ‘‘tunnel,’’ as cited by Berne, will explain to the therapist why cer-
tain patients improve but do not heal unless these limits are overcome. Bowater (2013) described a
patient’s repetitive nightmares as script dreams and how the attribution of meaning to the nightmare
affords some patients sufficient awareness to come out of the script tunnel.
Hence, through dreams, the Child in each of us plays at dressing up, staging himself or herself and
others in role plays that are similar to theater plays. In so doing, script scenes can be revealed, includ-
ing the individual’s protocol, that is, the earliest memories and decisions that generated the emotive
context of the script decisions. Even more interesting is the subsequent process of communication
and narration of the dream to others and acting at interpreting it. The therapist can wonder: What is
this person telling us today through his or her dream?

Dreams Narrated in Psychotherapy Groups

Through the actions and feelings patients manifest in group, the experience, or protocol, that formed
the basis of their script decisions is rapidly and clearly revealed. It is visible in transference toward
the therapist, other group members, and the group itself. Added to the communicative behaviors
observable by the therapist are the narrations of the patients, who present an account of themselves
that is usually different from and complementary to the one the therapist has heard in individual ses-
sions. To these narrations of the patient’s past history and present life are eventually added the narra-
tion of dreams.
In the logic of treatment, where a dream is described as a message that patients send to them-
selves, the help they request from the therapist is to decode that message. The dream may appear
Tangolo 3

incomprehensible and be accompanied by intense emotions of anguish or, more rarely, pleasant feel-
ings. In the group, the dream is also an important way patients tell other group members something
about themselves in a symbolic way: ‘‘I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of,’’ ‘‘I’ll astound you with strong
images,’’ ‘‘I want to make you feel afraid,’’ or ‘‘I want to invite you to make contact with me.’’
Those who listen to the dream narration, including the therapist and other group members, find
themselves in the position of an archaeologist looking on the ruins of a pyramid. They need to
approach with care a world of symbols and broken memories belonging to someone whom they
do not know. It is the therapist who nurtures the climate of nonjudgmental listening in the group
whereby the attitude and behavior of those listening to the dream narration is one of exploration.
From that position, we need to know that we are experiencing a language of images, and, thus,
just as when we look at a painting or a surrealist film, we cannot expect there to be a single correct
interpretation. We also cannot expect the dream to correspond to the linear logic of the rational mind
and its cognitive processes. An image evokes and encloses within itself the power to recall multiple
emotions and meanings. With dreams we are closer to a symbolic representation than to prosaic nar-
ration. The language of symbol and image, poetic depth, metaphor and analogy is the lexis of the
dream world. It is a language of the Child, often forgotten and thus inaccessible to the Adult who
no longer knows how to grasp with spontaneity the message that comes from within himself or
herself.
Berne (1957) wrote,

It is a common error to suppose that finding out the meaning of the dream is the important thing. This is
not so. The meanings must be felt, not merely understood, for the interpretation to have any effect in
changing the underlying Id tensions, which is the purpose of the procedure. (p. 117)

The usefulness of dreamwork in therapy thus lies in accompanying patients in their attempts to
face emotions and contents that are disturbing, to become more familiar with their inner demons, and
to learn to listen to their inner advisor (the Little Professor), who attempts to survive in the best way
possible. Also, and in particular, during the course of dynamic psychotherapy, the dream is a con-
tinuation of the analysis of the person’s script. It is as if patients, once they have emerged from indi-
vidual or group sessions, continue to work toward a new equilibrium, making attempts through
dreams by trial and error at reshaping their script. If the therapist imagines that a little, intuitive inner
therapist is activated in the patient who acts in dreams to seek solutions and unveil enigmas, in ther-
apy this valuable nocturnal help can serve as a daily protagonist in the analysis. The dreamer is the
nocturnal researcher who works in alliance with the therapist and is, therefore, a precious, unique
collaborator in the process of comprehension and change that the patient desires, albeit with the fears
that change involves.

Dreams and the Group Imago

In this section, I will describe, first in theoretical terms and then using examples of dreams, the cor-
respondence between the evolving phases of the group imago (Clarkson, 1992) and the phases of the
dreams of group members.

Phase One: The Temporary Imago

In this phase, individuals use dreams to tell others in the group who they are and what they fear. Each
person unconsciously introduces himself or herself along with his or her life script, which represents
the best system of adaptation that he or she has discovered in order to live in the world. In this
presentation, patients express their way of satisfying the need to be accepted by the group and the
therapist. This is a reflection of their own more general needs for inclusion, ties with the world,
4 Transactional Analysis Journal

and belonging to it. This takes place by means of the emotional and social strategies they already
know.
Each person who comes into the group thus expresses an attitude typical of his or her existential
position, which, according to Berne, constitutes the script protocol. This position reflects the expe-
rience we have of ourselves, others, and life and is immediately acted on in the group. It is through
this that each person introduces himself or herself to others in dialogue. In this process, the emotions
felt and the strategies acted on are clearly script based. In fact, becoming a member of the group
reactivates for new members the fundamental themes of social development and birth that formed
their script. These themes pertain to the person seeking a social context in order to live, and they can
be seen in the answers to the questions individuals asks themselves in relation to their social envi-
ronment: How am I going to survive? How can I gain love, strokes, power, and a place for myself?
The absence of full awareness of the dynamics and rules of the group context, typical of this
phase, facilitates the projective process in group members. Thus, some patients have dreams about
the group straight away or even before coming into the group. These dreams contain messages for
the group, a way of symbolically transmitting the patient’s own fears and expectations to the others.
In this phase, this modality becomes a privileged form of communication for certain patients who
feel more at ease with nonverbal language, mediated and to some extent shielded by the protection
of dream symbolism. The way in which the group reacts to a dream becomes, in turn, a message of
response, a stroke, or a lack of recognition for the dreamer.
At this stage, as a therapist, I choose not to work at an interpretative level but, rather, to accept the
narration as it is presented and limit myself to observing the impact on the group. It is always inter-
esting to notice the dynamics in action; for example, in their narration, do the dreamers favor the
dual dimension (i.e., the individual relationship with the therapist and his or her input) or do they
invite the group to share in their experience, encouraging interpretation by other members? The
therapist, in turn, by encouraging sharing, must, through observation, record faithfully any differ-
ences in functioning of the patient-dreamer in the group as compared to the individual setting, not
forgetting to actively exert a facilitating function designed to combat the desire to flee that is some-
times present at this stage.

Case Examples
Sofia’s dream. Sofia is a 41-year-old researcher who enters therapy when she is going through an
acute phase of depression and anxiety. After a period of individual treatment and good remission
of her symptoms, we decide to continue the therapy to reach a deeper understanding of the causes
of her crisis. I advise her to join a psychotherapy group, and she tells me about the following dream,
which she had the night before the first group session:

I introduce myself at the first group therapy session. The place is kind of a big open space, a large square,
a semidark hangar, inside of which, separated by dividing walls, are lots of square-shaped boxing rings
illuminated from above by really strong direct lights. You can hear a suffused murmur, and the patients
can be seen coming and going. At each ring there are patients, some fully clothed, some seminude, and
others nude. Some are lying on the floor, apparently senseless or asleep. Others are moving them, pulling
them by their feet, as if they were playing a game of solitaire with bodies in place of cards. The two thera-
pists stand at the edge of the ring and whisper to each other, as if they were making bets as to how the
match will go, who will win, and so on. I arrive and get into the ring, and at once someone tells me to sit
on a bench at the side. I obey, and after 3 minutes they tell me the therapy is over. ‘‘Is that all?’’ I ask.
‘‘Only 3 minutes?’’ ‘‘That’s all for today,’’ replies the therapist. I’m puzzled and go away.

In this case, the dream reveals the patient’s preconstructed group imago. It is usually better to
keep this early dream for analysis later, when the patient is feeling confident enough about his or
Tangolo 5

her entry into the group. So, I usually just listen to this narration without taking the interpretation to
excessive depths, looking within this representation for those elements that might be prognostically
favorable to the work that we will be doing.
I thus say to Sofia that her position on the bench at the side is comfortable for her at present and
that it will be from this position that we will be starting our therapy in the group. Sofia will subse-
quently remark that this comment offered her important reassurance and that it was precisely in this
context that the psychological basis for her contract of entry into the group was defined.
Irene’s dreams. Irene is a 35-year-old woman who embarks on therapy in a period of depression
brought on by the end of a partnership and a change of city and job. She is beginning to live
alone after her entire life has fallen apart with the end of her relationship. She describes her
dream:

I’m at your [the therapist’s] house, there are a lot of people, and I go up to you. Some purebred fighting
dogs are arriving. You’ve let them come in! I say to you, ‘‘What the hell are you doing?’’ I put out my
arm to protect myself and one of the dogs bites me. I think: He did it out of revenge because I had hit you
lightly. I am resigned to the fact that the dog will always bite me. I won’t be able to free myself; he’ll drag
me along, and I’ll have to follow him. The entrance door seems to be made of cardboard. There are some
Arabs outside who are trying to get in, and I wake up feeling anguish.

In the group analysis of Irene’s dream, she says, ‘‘I know I’m afraid of the group, and I feel very
aggressive toward the others at the same time.’’ A member of the group adds, ‘‘Often you seem as if
you might bite when you speak, your remarks are very cutting.’’ Irene recognizes the truth of this and
offers, ‘‘Actually, I’m afraid of being bitten in my turn and that the therapist won’t protect me, leav-
ing me alone to be dragged along by my anger, the mastiff.’’
Out of the group discussion another meaning also emerges: The dog that bites her is also the
recurrence of depression and dysphoria. After this dream Irene feels more at ease in the group.
Irene then has a second dream related to the group, which she describes as follows:

There’s a child who doesn’t resemble me, a boy, accompanied by a woman. He sits down to have a pair
of roller skates put on. Then a man, who is my father, says: ‘‘Speak, speak!’’ And the woman says, ‘‘Can’t
you see that he has lost his speech? He has to get used to his new condition.’’ And then I say, ‘‘Try roller
blades, they’re faster!’’

In the next group, Irene explains, ‘‘For me, falling into depression is like losing my speech: To
avoid having to feel, I run around doing lots of things. I haven’t the words to say how I feel. I feel like
a child, not a woman. For me, it’s difficult to sit for 2 hours listening to you. I try not to stop at all, as
if I were on skates.’’ Some in the group observe, ‘‘It’s true, we can see that at times you’d like to get
away from us.’’

Phase Two: Temporarily Adapted Imago

This phase involves the conflict between trusting and communicating and not trusting. By this point,
patients have reached a minimum level of confidence with regard to their belonging to the group.
Starting from this initial confidence, they allow themselves to let a conflictual tone creep into their
communication. This may be expressed toward the leader, the group as a whole, or some groups
members in particular, depending on personal script themes.
Here dreams reveal fears relating to the conflict and often to anxiety generated by the aggressive-
ness of self or others and by the fear of being rejected. These dreams often refer to a difficulty in
communication and mediation that represents a concern relating to real life, within the group and
outside of it.
6 Transactional Analysis Journal

In this phase, the therapist’s work may already include interpretation, together with the group,
with the result of attenuating the anxiety and reducing the conflictual experience to a less traumatic
and more protected form. This period of learning is already part of the process of transformation.
Patients may now bring their own conflictual nature to the group without having to leave. They see
that the others are not exhausted by it and that their own contribution can be constructive. In this
phase, a recurrent oneiric fantasy may regard, for example, the destruction of the group caused
by the dreamer.

Case Example
Bet’s dreams. Bet is a 27-year-old phobic woman with an anxiety problem and various psychoso-
matic illnesses. She has difficulty speaking at work, tends to isolate herself, and finds it difficult
to defend her rights and face up to others. Her illnesses include irritable bowel syndrome and a seri-
ous case of bruxism (for which she must wear a shield) that causes jaw pain, especially at night. Her
difficulty in speaking and facing others also manifests in group. After a year, she reports this dream:

I feel a strong sensation of helplessness. I want to open my mouth but it won’t open. The upper part of my
mouth and my upper jaw sink into my lower teeth. The bottom right canine feels wobbly and falls out,
like a milk tooth. The canine has a hole in it. It’s hollow because it has been crushed by the top teeth. I
continue to destroy the molars too, and they flake. Oh my god, what am I doing? I was scared, but my
upper jaw seemed to be automatic, out of control. It was like a ceiling falling on top of me.

Bet said about the dream, ‘‘The strange thing is that when I woke up, I didn’t have any muscle pain.
But from then on I’ve had jaw and neck pain.’’
Bet’s jaw pain, nocturnal contraction of the mouth, and teeth grinding began at age 15. She says
that her upper jaw represents her ability to control things, to reveal nothing, to keep to herself. To
remain silent about her secrets, to tell lies, and not to speak about herself to others is important to her
as a way of avoiding the judgment of others, which she greatly fears. ‘‘I’ve always felt judged by my
father, always in the wrong in his eyes. If I don’t say anything about myself, I avoid being judged.’’
She adds that she greatly fears aggression in others, that she does not know how to defend herself
except by walking away. To her, the hollow canine, like a milk tooth, represents this difficulty in
‘‘using her teeth,’’ that is, in showing the aggressiveness that is sometimes useful, especially at work.
After sharing and talking about this dream in group, Bet took a more active part in group conver-
sations. She revealed her emotions and trained herself to be assertive at work and also in group as
observed by other group members.

Phase Three: Operative Imago

In this phase, the group is present in dreams, which are interpreted in the group sessions. When and if
the therapist succeeds in reining in the patients’ fantasies of catastrophe, which often dominate the
second phase, the level of exchange among them increases and becomes more intense and direct.
There is an increase in both dialogical exchange and games, during which patients bring to the sur-
face those parts of their script that relate to the dynamics of exchange among peers. Whereas in the
first phase, exchange with the authoritative figure (the Parent) prevails, in phase three the imago is
embellished with new characters. The themes become articulated and differentiated.
Now dreams often become an expression of this differentiation. They include other group mem-
bers and the therapist in more explicit form. The group dimension becomes a recurring framework so
that patients dream more often of groups in general as well as about their own therapy group. The
dreams are crowded with collective group situations. When group members begin to dream expli-
citly about the group and other group members, a profound phase of the analytic work has been
Tangolo 7

reached. The transactions frequently go beyond games and, as often as not, manifest in activities and
intimacy.

Case Examples
The dreams of Giusi, Maria, Bianca, Kati, and Terry. The context in which the dreams described
here take place is a therapy group of women in their thirties plus one around 50. We heard about
these dreams during the therapy group itself.
Giusi is a 30-year-old woman whose studies are at a standstill because of recurring depression,
although she is close to graduating. Terry is a 50-year-old woman, the mother of two children, in
therapy for the difficulties that she has in close relationships and for her tendency to isolate herself.
This is Giusi’s dream:

I was waiting for Terry in a house; she was in a hurry and had to transfer some wine into a large demi-
john. She was in a rush and said she didn’t have time for a coffee. I go into another room and get a text
message from you [the therapist] with some joyful symbols, and we interpret them. The expected twins
have been born. [Giusi goes on to say that she associates this image with the entrance of two men in the
group after a long period of only women.]

Maria is a 32-year-old physiotherapist in treatment for difficulties in establishing close relation-

ships. She recounts her dream:

I was in a group with you two [cotherapists] and two others. We were at your house [she turns to
one of the therapists]. There was a narrow corridor, a lot of books and armchairs. I’m speaking and
you get a phone call from a client that makes you really angry. You’re really harsh and slam the
phone down on him. I finish speaking about my feeling of loneliness. You ask me something else,
and I start crying. I can see darkness, you come up to me and hug me. I wake up with a feeling of
well-being from the hug.

Maria commented, ‘‘I feel more open toward love. I feel different. I feel that there’s less distance
between you and me. The other week I dreamed that I had to go to bed with a really old oriental
guru, and now I’m able to let myself be hugged in the group.’’
Bianca is a 28-year-old woman who suffers from anxiety and food disorders. She graduated from
university after an interruption in her studies. She tells us the following dream:

I was supposed to come for group therapy, and I find myself in a group of strangers, in a place I don’t
know. I hear they are speaking about sex education, and I feel incredibly uneasy. At the end of this hour, I
have to come here, and I ask someone for information. It’s you, and I pay you for the hour of sex edu-
cation. I feel really anxious. I was at a party; it was a big space, and I had the feeling that I’d done some-
thing wrong [feeling of guilt]. There were faces I didn’t recognize that showed disapproval of me. I
argued violently with someone, and then I ran off. I came away by myself. I went into a house and picked
up a cushion. I climbed out of the window really upset. I was upset, it was raining, I had the cushion with
me, and I was crying. I got to your house [the therapist’s], and there’s a veranda full of black men eating.
I ask after you, and they tell me that you aren’t in but to wait for you there. I sit down with them and I feel
relieved. I wait for you.

Bianca’s comment about the dream was that ‘‘it came after a week of nocturnal nightmares, agita-
tion, and sweating.’’ She is exploring her sexuality and through the group has been experiencing an
education in sex that goes against the injunctions ‘‘not to enjoy it’’ and ‘‘not to be intimate.’’
Kati is a 35-year-old woman who is in therapy because she is not satisfied with her close relation-
ships and does not seem able to have children. Her dream is as follows:
8 Transactional Analysis Journal

We are at a special group session at my family home, which turns out to be the therapist’s house. I
express my need for attention to the therapist, who hugs me and strokes me for a long time. I’m plea-
santly disturbed by it. She continues to stroke me for so long that I begin to think the others might be
jealous. When everyone has gone, I remain with the therapist and tell her that I’ve had a dream that
I’d like to tell her about, but she doesn’t have time. She has to go to a rugby match, but she says I can
stay at her house anyway. I’m alone, and my partner arrives; I tell him that this isn’t my house any longer,
that it’s the therapist’s house and he can stay there as well.

Kati noted that she was experiencing a conflict between her desire for a new phase of individual
therapy and her link to the group. The other group participants point out that in the dream there
is a representation of contact and closeness that she does not usually show.
Terry, as described earlier, is a 50-year-old woman, the mother of two children, in therapy for
difficulties in her close relationships and a tendency to isolate herself. She relates the following
dream:

We are guests, my theater group and I, in an apartment, and we have to act out our show there. I’m
pregnant and sleep in a room with another girl. The therapist and her husband come into the apartment
to see the show. I sit them down on a sofa and try to turn on the television to entertain them. The hus-
band appears to be skeptical: How can I act if I’m pregnant? I shouldn’t be doing it. We haven’t
rehearsed it yet, there’s no time. I’m afraid I won’t remember my lines, and I feel alone and
unprepared.

Terry was effectively engaging in acting in her life, but the interesting aspect is the pregnancy, which
is experienced by all the women participating in the group as a reminder of the change that is taking
place within the group (two men come in, the twins dreamt of by Giusi) and also in the life of Terry
(new decisions and greater willingness to become closer to the others).

Phase Four: Secondarily Adapted Imago

Phase four involves the representation of healing through the narration of the dream to the group.
Psychotherapy should conclude with the achievement of the aims of the contract, hence with the
solving of the problems that prompted the patient to seek treatment and personal analysis. Both
therapist and patient have in mind an idea of how the therapy should conclude. It is important that
these representations are explicitly stated and explored.
Healing for most people means growing, abandoning pretense and infantile illusions, and being
able to stand on their own two feet in the adult world by means of their own strengths and with the
help of others. It also means helping others in return on the basis of reciprocity. Berne (1964)
wrote,

The aware person is alive because he knows how he feels, where he is and when it is. He knows that after
he dies the trees will still be there, but he will not be there to look at them again, so he wants to see them
now with as much poignancy as possible. (p. 180)

In phase four, the group functions as a sounding board for the emotive process linked to redeci-
sion and the acquisition of awareness. In some cases, the group also functions as an external mem-
ory, recalling the patient’s prior dreams in a process of activating a collective memory that helps to
reconnect the present to the whole process that has taken place. It is surprising that, in group, patients
often remember with great accuracy the dreams of others.
At the level of oneiric content, at times the group also functions as a resource in solving the
patient’s conflict. However, sometimes the group is simply there as a spectator, intervening to under-
score the change of themes.
Tangolo 9

Case Example
Giulio is 28 years old when he starts therapy. He is a nurse and lives with his widowed mother. He is
awkward in social relationships and unable to find a girlfriend. He was epileptic as a child and shows
great anxiety when speaking in public: He interrupts himself and cannot finish his sentences. He
dresses inadequately, often makes himself look ugly, and appears ill-tempered. I put him into a
group after a few months of individual treatment, and we witness a good deal of improvement in
his social and conversational abilities. The level of anxiety in his dreams rises.
Giulio’s recurring nightmare is of a monster that he never sees but that leaves traces of killings.
The monster frequently chases after him and the characters in his dreams. For 2 years the monster
terrorizes Giulio’s nights. At a certain point in the analysis of his dreams, Giulio finally bursts into
tears and says, ‘‘I fear that I’m the monster, I’ve always been afraid of becoming a serial killer, of
being monstrous. Perhaps that’s why I can’t find a woman.’’ Speaking to the women in the group
proves extremely useful to Giulio, helping him to realize that he makes himself appear ugly and that
he has had an active role in getting himself rejected.
As Novellino (2012) suggested, it is important not to underestimate the psychodynamics of night-
mares and the importance of correctly understanding how they reflect central, conflictual themes
that arise during psychotherapy. After deeper analysis,, the theme of the monster will be associated
by Giulio to his epilepsy and the fears of losing control generated by the illness.
Later Giulio has a new dream:

I’m with some others of the group hunting the monster. I run toward a house we know he’s gone into, we
run together toward a central room where he’s locked himself in. I force the door, and I’m astonished to
see that the room is empty—it’s light, with white walls, and the sun is streaming in through the windows.

Here Giulio starts crying, which is liberating and a relief for him. The dream provides a powerful
image of the redecision he made during therapy. Not long after this, Giulio falls in love, marries,
and ends his psychotherapy.

Phase Five: The Group Imago Explained

The fifth phase involves saying good-bye to the therapist and the group. It coincides with the closure
of the therapy experience, during which there emerge themes related to leaving home and separation.
At this point, we frequently witness a projective evocation of the world in which the patient expe-
rienced leaving home. We find patients who seek to hurry up the process and others who would like
to put it off for fear of not being able to make it. It is as if their energy depended on the weekly group
contact, leaving them with a prevailing sense of worry at having to go it alone. This happens when,
in Berne’s (1972) words, ‘‘At a certain point, with the help of the therapist and his own Adult, he [the
patient] is capable of breaking out of his script entirely and putting his own show on the road, with
new characters, new roles, and a new plot and payoff’’ (p. 363). This aspect reemerges in the dream:
the fears, expectations, and relative meanings of finally going it alone in the world.
For some, this process occurs after closure of the experience and is in the form of a reprocessing
that happens in the ensuing months. It is often referred to in follow-up sessions or messages and let-
ters that the therapist receives over time: ‘‘I dreamed of you again.’’ There is a need for an emotive
reprocessing that continues after the separation.

Case Examples
Giulia’s dream. The following message was sent to me by Giulia, who had finished group treatment
some months before:
10 Transactional Analysis Journal

Hi. The other night I dreamed about you. Strange that in all the years of therapy I never dreamed
about you, yet now that I’m out of the group, this is already the second time. When you appear, it’s
a really nice feeling, I’d say one of trust and recognition. This time, although I got out of bed to
write down the dream, unfortunately I wasn’t able to. Some time ago, I dreamed about my mum,
with whom I was arguing about a wedding or something like that. Afterward, in the dream, you
appear, and we’re walking together, climbing up a spiral staircase. You speak a bit on the phone
about some business of yours in front of me. You don’t care if I hear you. Then the staircase leads
to a big room, like the lobby of a hotel/congress/exhibition (that’s the impression I get), and we
have a snack, talking to each other around a small, round, high table, like in a bar. I don’t remem-
ber anything else, but I know that the bad feeling of the argument has changed into one of accep-
tance, of welcome and serenity.

Giulia had a long group therapy treatment for depression that had thrown obstacles in the path of
her university studies and life. Now she works, lives with a partner, and has found her own equili-
brium, although she has had to combat her Parent ego state’s expectations of a perfect life that she
felt incapable of fulfilling.
Fanny’s dream. Fanny is 32 years old and a psychologist who is just finishing her group therapy. She
is processing her grief at the end of therapy, which coincides with her leaving the family home. She
reports the following dream:

I’m at —. I go to the place where I have therapy to share the joys and emotions of the conference [the
success of a public intervention of hers]. When I get there, I find it’s very dark. It’s an immense loft over-
looking a port. The building is dilapidated. I see that the therapist is all energy, and I don’t want to be
seen. I’m scared that she thinks I’m in the way. I sit beside Ilaria, who is working and doesn’t pay any
attention to me. Then Andrea arrives and gives me a guided tour. There’s a corner all of glass, and I look
out of the window. The sky is grey, and the water of the port is sluggish and putrid. On a terrace I see a lot
of old desks lined up, and I think how weatherbeaten they are. On one of them there’s the therapist’s bag.
Andrea takes me into a corridor, and I realize that it’s made up of old and new tiles, all side by side and all
different. I ask why it’s such a mosaic, and he answers that new tiles have been put in where there were
missing ones, but that those that were there have been kept in place. I think that it’s a shoddy job, but
Andrea shrugs his shoulders and doesn’t agree with me.

Fanny is in the process of finding a house of her own, and she has a new job. She must reconcile the
conflicting emotions linked to so many changes, the old and the new tiles, her pleasure at her new
life and her sadness at having to say farewell.

Conclusion
Dreams are a powerful language evocative of profound script scenarios and the change that accom-
panies therapy. Listening to the language of an adult’s dreams means gaining access to the level of
the Child ego state with greater immediacy, as a child therapist does with drawings and games. The
group functions as an imposing theatrical stimulus and a receptacle for emotions, suggestions, and
images, similar to that of the mother described by Bion (1992) in the processes of reverie. In this
way, the group gives rise to the oneiric climate that nurtures the reactivation of the Child dreamer
who has written the script and who can rewrite it according to a new plan within a matrix of new
decisions, new perspectives, and new options. Group dreamwork thus becomes the stimulus for the
group members to enter the emotive and suggestive world of the Child mind that creates the script
and can also redecide it on the basis of powerful intuitions and healing experiences.
In the wake of profound listening to the patient’s primary emotions and the decisions correlated
with them, attention to the evolution of dreams also reveals how the group experience acts on this
inner world. It thus becomes a tool for observing and understanding the transformational dimensions
Tangolo 11

of transference (Ogden, 2001) and healing in accordance with an intersubjective perspective on

mind and therapy (Mitchell, 1995).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Author Biography

Anna Emanuela Tangolo is a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), a

psychotherapist, and the director of the PerFormat Psychotherapy Specializing School in Pisa and
Catania, Italy. She founded PerFormat Salute, a professional network for the promotion of psycho-
physical health involving over 80 professionals, including counselors, psychologists, psychothera-
pists, and psychiatrists representing over 20 specialty practices around Italy, all of whom share the
same TA ethical code and methodology. Anna Emanuela can be reached at Performat, via Giuntini,
25, 56023 Navacchio, Pisa, Italy; email: tangolo@performat.it.