| 22nd Annual Conference 2010 |
Page 1 of 8 CONVERSATIONS ON DREAMING: THERAPEUTIC VISIONS ON SLEEP, SESSIONS AND THE PSYCHEWELCOME Dear Conference Participant A warm welcome! I hope that over the course of the conference you are able to learn much, contribute much and have conversations that are rich for you. It is no coincidence that the focus this year is on that strangest of human experience, dreaming. In August next year the World Congress of Psychotherapy, with which ANZAP is closely involved, has taken as its title, World Dreaming. It is, perhaps, a good time to be dreaming; to be entering that realm where the bizarre is commonplace and where deformations of the usual are the norm. Certainly, this is the space in which we do our work; where the psyche shows itself all too clearly. But, in this time when the adjective global is being attached to many events and processes, to dream may be as necessary for the world as it is for the work we do. After all, is it not the bizarre and the deformed that come to be seen as the solution to structures both psychic and solid that, while useful in their day, now constrict and kill? Neither, perhaps, is it a coincidence that the Old English word dream meant joy, jubilation, music, minstrelsy. It was Jung, I think, who identified the function of dreaming as homeostasis; that where there is depression, misery and dysfunction the dream works to restore balance. And closely connected with this is Russell Meares’ conception that at the heart of the healthy psyche is the experience of well-being, of joy. If this is your first time at an ANZAP Conference you are especially welcome and please come and say hello. If you are coming back having been to others, it would be good to meet with you again. Brendan McPhillips ANZAP President |
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