The purpose of this study is to investigate the value of using a Daseinsanalytic approach to dream explication in order to reveal the essential meaningfulness of behaviourial possibilities for the patient. After discussing the Daseinsanalytic view on dream explication, emphasizing Medard Boss's approach as the major exponent of this view, the study explores the usefulness and validity of the study as a method of investigating the dreams from this perspective. The dreams related in this study are examined individually, giving a phenomenological understanding of each and also providing a possible prospective focus for therapy. It will be shown that the phenomenological understanding of the patient's dreams corresponds with his subjective experience of his emotional existential situation and that any positive changes in the content of the dreams over time corresponds with observable and related changes in his behaviour, ideation and mood. However, if the suggested prospective focus of Medard Boss had been more usefully employed when each dream was explicated in the therapy sessions, it is felt that the progress of therapy would have been greatly enhanced. This study therefore concludes that the use of Medard Boss's approach to dream explication has not only a hermeneutic value in the process of therapy, but also aids the dreamer in becoming aware of the possible modes of behaviour yet unrevealed in his waking life.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hermeneutic value of the Daseinsanalytic approach to dream interpretation in the process of psychotherapy. After delineating the Daseinsanalytic view on dream interpretation, with emphasis on the conceptualization of Medard Boss, the study explores the usefulness and validity of the case study as a method of investigating the content and process of psychotherapy. A psychodynamic formulation of the presenting problem is based on the conceptualization of the nature and etiology of neurosis as delineated by Andras Angyal, with particular reference to the pattern of noncommitment. The dreams included in the case material are then examined to determine to what degree they facilitated insight into the subjective experience and phenomenological existence of the dreamer, and what effect the dream interpretation based on the Daseinsanalytic approach had on the process of therapy. It is established that a phenomenological understanding of the client's dreams corresponds with his subjective experience of his emotional and existential condition, and that positive changes in the content of the dreams during the course of therapy correspond with overt, observable changes in his behaviour, ideation and mood. Based on these findings, the case study leads to the conclusion that the Daseinsanalytic approach to dream interpretation has hermeneutic value in the process of psychotherapy.