Freud assignment

Keep a dream diary for a week. It's a good idea to keep some paper and a pen next to your bed and to write down what you dreamt about as soon as you wake up. Make it as detailed as possible. If other aspects of the dreams occur to you during the day, jot these down too.

Select an interesting, long and detailed dream with no overt sexual content and do the following:

a) Write a full description of the dream in comprehensible prose.

b) Analyse the dream in terms of psychoanalytic theory. Each point should explain the relevant part of the theory in detail and then explain the associated episode or theme of the dream in relation to that part. You should make at least 12 points.

c) Explain what method the psychoanalyst would use to fully investigate the meaning of your dream.

d) Criticise the validity of the psychoanalytic interpretation of your dream with reference to published research. You should make 12 different criticisms, backed up where possible with empirical evidence or philosophical justification.

Reading

Gross: Psychology, the science of mind and behaviour

pp507-519
pp586-587 (also read the fascinating story of the Batista family on p583 and work out what Freud would have predicted became of them)
pp681-685
pp765-774

In other words, the large handout I have given you. (Beware that some pages in the handout start with the preceding topic in the textbook and should be ignored down to the relevant section.)