There is rather little scientific work on dreams of low structured patients. Nonetheless, authors have repeatedly emphasized the important distinction between “classic” neurotic dreams and dreams with a low structure. This differentiation mainly refers to the clinical handling and the dream content, and less to the affect regulation within dreams. In addition, a psychoanalytic understanding of disorders related to borderline personality organization is typically associated with traumatizing object relationships and impaired affect regulation. At the interface between empirical dream and psychotherapy process research, this study therefore examines the following questions:
Here, research faces an exciting parallel between the re-enactment of early relationship experiences underlying psychic complexes in interactive psychotherapeutic events on the one hand and the micro-world dream (Moser & Hortig, 2019) on the other.
Fully audio- or video-documented psychoanalytic treatments serve as data basis from which dream reports are transcribed. Affect regulation within dreams is assess applying the Zurich Dream Process Coding Systems (ZDPCS; Moser & Hortig, 2019; Moser & von Zeppelin, 1996). Within the therapeutic process, the main focus is on the defense mechanisms used by the patient, and the therapeutic alliance