Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria Glossary

Glossary of Terms

Censor

The mental agent that prevents the consciousness from realizing a dream's latent content. Events in a dream are often condensed or displaced to obscure the wish aiming to be fulfilled.

Free Association

A psychoanalytic technique in which the patient says whatever comes to his or her mind. The psychoanalyst then forms a chain of associations to better understand the patient's unconscious.

Latent content

The unconscious wish or desire that motivates a dream.

Manifest content

The remembered events of a dream. Manifest content must be interpreted to arrive at the wish that the dream seeks to fulfill.

Repression

A mental process by which a taboo, immoral or unrealistic desire is confined to the unconscious.

Symptom

A strange and often unexplained physical ailment that stems from an unresolved mental problem.

Transference

A process by which emotional and often sexual feelings held for one person are redirected to the psychoanalyst during the course of therapy.