Case 26: Unmasking the Devil with PT—Rorschach and SIS
Every night, humans spend several hours in the mysterious inner world of dreams. It has been estimated that at any time almost half of the world’s population is asleep dreaming. Those with an innate sense of curiosity have long been fascinated with the meaning of the images and affect experienced during the thousands of hours spent in this altered state of consciousness.
This project explores symbolism in a devil dream. A severely depressed adolescent girl (T) reported it. She had been hospitalized after experiencing suicidal and homicidal ideation. She was interviewed using the Rorschach and SIS stimuli as the sources for visual stimulation of daytime imagery. It will be shown how analysing the content and emotional linkage of the projected responses provided information for analysis and interpretation.
For a few illustrative moments, please leave your immediate time and space reality coordinates behind and imagine entering her inner world of dreams:
<Block quote begins>
I had a dream that me and my brother were having fun and were laughing and having fun as we usually do and then all of a sudden, something swished by me like someone was running real fast by me but with no foot … but no foot … but no running sounds and then all of a sudden, something by … appeared in front of us and the lights were turned out … all the lights went out and this bright thing was in front of us and then it turned out to be Lucifer and he was saying that we were a mistake to this earth, that we were going to ruin his plans and then he threw my brother up against the wall and he made his arms spread out and his legs together. He made a slash mark from elbow to elbow and then from forehead to waist like a cross and he let him bleed and he said I will do anything just to get rid of you guys. I am over … I am overpowered and he … and I shall take over and then he killed him by … he killed my brother by sending a hole through his forehead all the way to the back and then I remember turning away and just running and there was such long darkness and then I had this feeling of being frightened like I knew something was behind me and not knowing what to do and not knowing what would happen next and all of a sudden something hit me on my back and then I died and I heard this cruel laughter in the background and then I woke up.
<Block quote ends>
Discussion between Therapist (Dr B.) and Patient (T.) follows:
<Level B>The Dream’s Affect and Symbolism
Dr B.: How were you feeling throughout this dream?
T.: In the beginning when I was with my brother, I was having so much fun with him, [laughing]. It’s like old times. (The temporal reference of the dream portrays a happier time in her relationship with her brother who was two years older. He had not yet developed his own serious problems with suicidal depression. At that time, they were emotionally close having endured severe psychological and physical abuse by their mother.)
Dr B.: It was good.
T.: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr B.: Okay. And then what happened?
T.: And then I felt really frightened. I felt scared and I felt sad because my brother, he died in my dream and we are close and that’s the last thing on earth that I want to happen to him. (She had been very, very alarmed about his safety.)
Dr B.: You love him a lot.
T.: Yeah, and I felt frightened, like … and I felt lost.
Dr B.: Okay. And what’s the dream all about? Remember we talked about it a little bit?
T.: Yes. I think that the dream is … my fear of what I have of my brother dying and facing Lucifer because I have done a thing with the Ouija Board (a game allegedly to communicate with spiritual forces) and what that does is it opens a door to what … well, what I’ve heard is it opens the door to let him come into your body and ever since I have done that, I’ve had nightmares of him (here she indicates that there have been a long series of devil nightmares and, as will be shown later, because of wanting to forget their painful nature, she later was able to recall only one other devil dream) and I would feel scared alone or in the dark. I always had to have a light and I think it’s a fear of mine and to also know the fact that he would kill my brother. But the worst part that I think is fear when he said we’re a mistake, too – or we were going to ruin his plans. That’s the part I didn’t get.
Dr B.: What’s that part all about do you suppose?
T.: I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I also thought about it yesterday after gym group.
Dr B.: What thoughts have you had about a….
T.: I don’t know. (Here she is repressing the threatening memories and interpretations made available to her previously in the adolescent dream study group.)
Dr B.: Please try to remember your thoughts.
T.: What I thought was that I was confused and not sure.
Dr B.: What did you think about what the kids in the dream analysis group said about the dream?
T.: I think I got some really good feedback about my dreams.
Dr B.: Tell me about the feedback. What was good about it?
T.: Like, some people shared their views concerning what they thought my dream was about and….
Dr B.: What were those thoughts, do you remember?
T.: Not really but… (Again, her mental defence mechanisms block the painful interpretation that she had both good and evil in her personality—the devil representing the latter—made by a peer. None of her peers had recognized that the devil image could also symbolize the demonic qualities of her abusive mother.)
Dr B.: Remember the one girl who wondered about you and if you felt part of you had Satan?
T.: Oh, yes.
Dr B.: Tell us about that.
T.: What I thought about was like I felt that at some point in my life I did have Satan in me when I assaulted my mother and beat her up badly. She said it wasn’t me, it was something else that was controlling me. (In order for her mother to deny the reality of her daughter’s hate, she projected onto her daughter’s psychological identity a satanic label. The anger part was really ‘something else’.)
Dr B.: She said that?
T.: Yeah.
Dr B.: How did you feel when she said that?
T.: I felt like she was right. (Children incorporate into their identities negative labels assigned by their parents.)
Dr B.: Uh-huh [affirmative]
T.: And that something did get hold of me (she readily accepted the concept of having a devilish part to herself) but then I also felt hurt because for my mother to say that about me.
Dr B.: What way did that hurt you?
T.: It felt like I wasn’t a good enough daughter for her (her self-esteem was reduced thereby setting the stage for severe depression) and that I couldn’t get a second chance.
Dr B.: Do you sense there is a good part and then a bad part within you?
T.: Yes.
Dr B.: What’s the good part?
T.: The good part is always closeted and always willing to learn and knowing what to do.
Dr B.: And helpful to others. (She frequently gave emotional support to her brother and other patients at the hospital.)
T.: Yeah.
Dr B.: And the bad?
T.: The bad part is having thoughts, the urge to hurt myself or to….
Dr B.: Tell us about those thoughts.
T.: Thoughts where I think about throwing a chair through the window and grabbing a piece of glass and slitting my wrist or carving on myself all over my body. (She had acted upon some of these impulses.)
Dr B.: When you came here, you’d done some of that. What made you do that, do you know?
T.: I was pretty upset with myself because I let some things get over or carried away and I just felt like I had to punish myself.
Dr B.: What else besides hurting yourself the bad side represents?
T.: Of wanting to rebel and just do what I want and having thoughts of like just things and meaningful words to other people and having some thoughts of wanting to hurt people.
Dr B.: What was your conflict like with your mother?
T.: When I assaulted her or just threw ice at her?
Dr B.: Both.
T.: My conflict with my mom was—when I assaulted her—I felt like she was provoking me and so I just finally gave in.
Dr B.: What way was she provoking you?
T.: Like she was laughing at me (like the devil in her dream) and saying go ahead and do something so I can call the police, you just wait and see and laughing at me. (At age eleven, during her first hospitalization, she had learned in therapy not to entirely blame herself for her mother’s abusive behaviour. Consequently, she felt less guilty and her self-esteem became greater. However, she still could be provoked into rage and assault by her mother’s provocative psychological abuse. By contrast, she was never out of control in school or other settings.)
Dr B.: It hurts.
T.: Yeah.
Dr B.: Yeah. Okay. Anything more you want to say about your dream? Oh….
T.: No.
<Level B>Symbolic Content Analysis: Rorschach
For this interview, it was hypothesized that projective responses are generated from the same stream of consciousness as the imagery in night-time dreams. Initially, she was asked to report what she saw (i.e., real of symbolic content) and felt (i.e., affect associated with the image) in relation to viewing the 10 Rorschach cards.
Historically, Herman Rorschach created these cards originally as a visual basis for structured clinical interviewing. Consistent with these historical roots, the following procedure was carried out. Initially, the cards were presented in the traditional order, using them as a visual source for obtaining free association responses.
In the follow-up detailed enquiry, a different order was employed. All 10 plates were placed on a table face up. She was then asked to indicate the three that she ‘liked the most’ and the three that she ‘liked the least’. This emotional rating procedure gives more priority to the underlying image’s affect linkage than the content. Extensive projective work indicates that in clinical populations this approach has more value than simply obtaining projective responses on simply the order decided upon by either Rorschach or the original publisher. It facilitates establishing a subjectively determined hierarchy of positive and negative emotional feelings in assessing the significance of what is seen or avoided. When follow-up content analysis is employed, the clinician has to his disposal a powerful emotionally driven technique for exploring the overt as well as the symbolic meaning of responses.
The following represents a transcription of the Rorschach structured interview:
Dr B.: Okay. I am going to show you some of these cards today. Have you seen these before?
T.: Yes. (She had been tested by a psychologist employing traditional administration and scoring techniques six months earlier. In a later section of this chapter, the result of testing will be reported.)
Dr B.: Okay. This is the first card, what do you see?
T.: I see two animals that have wings with their feet together like they’re climbing up.
Dr B.: Okay. Do you experience any emotions with it?
T.: Just… (She begins to experience emotional arousal, but the affect linkage is quickly inhibited.)
Dr B.: What are they?
T.: No feelings or emotions about it (see later).
Dr B.: Okay. The second Card?
T.: It looks like two people squatting down and having their hands together like they’re in prayer.
Dr B.: Any feelings?
T.: It makes me feel good about the prayer part, like they’re praying.
Dr B.: Do you pray much?
T.: Yes.
Dr B.: Tell us about that.
T.: I pray every morning and every night to ask for restraint (i.e., acting on her aggressive ideation) or just to talk to Him … to God and to ask Him to help me understand life more. (Her understanding was facilitated by the projective interviewing herein being outlined.)
Dr B.: And what’s your view of God as compared to the devil now?
T.: Compared to the devil, I think He is a great person (her concept of spirituality involved the personification of ‘God’ and ‘Satan’) and that I believe in his ways and I don’t believe in Satan’s ways.
Dr B.: Do you ever pray in your dreams?
T.: I wouldn’t pray in my dreams, but I would say oh, God, please help me out loud, stuff like that. (Her spirituality both in the day and in night-time dreams was important to her.)
Dr B.: That’s a form of prayer, isn’t it? And one would just say that in a dream?
T.: When I’m scared or like when I have fearful dreams or when I have dreams of wanting to hurt myself. (In spite of ongoing psychotherapy and psychotropic medication, she continued to experience occasional depressive episodes with suicidal ideation.)
Dr B.: Do you have many dreams of those?
T.: I haven’t had many but … I do get them. (She did not always symbolically disguise her identify in some of her self-destructive dreams.)
Dr B.: Yeah. Okay. Here’s the third one.
T.: These little parts look like monkeys in upside down and looks like two people holding something.
Dr B.: Any idea what?
T.: Like something to hold water in, like a jug.
Dr B.: Okay. Thank you. And then this one is number four.
T.: It looks like a dragon … and then these two parts right here look like shoes.
Dr B.: Any feelings with that?
T.: No.
Dr B.: Okay. Here is the next (Card V).
T.: This one looks like a bat. And this part looks like an animal face, It’s an animal eats ant,
Dr B.: Okay A6 ?
T.: Looks like two men back to back like they’re about, yeah, like they’re ready to do something.
Dr B.: Like what?
T.: Like … what’s that called? Like where you both … where they both step up 10 feet, not seeing each other and they turn around.
Dr B.: A duel?
T.: Yeah, a duel. That’s what it looks like. (At the interpersonal level, this symbolized the fighting with her mother. It portrays her conflict between identifying with the positive and demonic image of her mother.)
Dr B.: Okay. A7 ?
T.: Looks like two ladies’ dancing.
Dr B.: Any feelings there?
T.: Fun.
Dr B.: A8? .
T.: Looks like two bears are climbing up a mountain.
Dr B.: Any feelings?
T.: T.: Just peacefulness.
Dr B.: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. A9?
T.: Well, this orange part looks like they’re two mooses and then this is … the green part looks like there are two people there holding something.
Dr B.: Like what?
T.: Like a baby. (Consistent with the fact that her mother was intoxicated and not psychologically supportive through her early years. Unconsciously, she longed for nurturing.)
Dr B.: Uh-huh and how do you feel looking at that?
T.: Good. I like babies.
Dr B.: Last one?
T.: These parts right here look like they’re two more men.
Dr B.: That’s the sort of orange parts on the side?
T.: Yeah, with the yellow and the….
Dr B.: On the lower left.
T.: Yes….
Dr B.: Yeah, and the right. What do they look like?
T.: Two women like the yellow part’s their hair and their heads are thrown back. Looks like they’re spilling something, or it looks like a blanket.
Dr B.: Any feelings?
T.: It looks like … something like a native culture (her mother’s background).
Dr B.: Okay. Thank you. Now, we’ve got them all … arranged here (plates are placed in order on interview desk face up). Can you pick out the three you like the most?
T.: I like that one (Card II).
Dr B.: What do you like about that?
T.: Because it looks like they’re praying (she identifies with the praying figures).
Dr B.: Okay. What is the second one that you like the most?
T.: That one (Card VII).
Dr B.: What do you like about it?
T.: Because they’re dancing and having fun. (At this stage of hospitalization she was experiencing occasional positive moods and was able to participate in fun hospital activities with her peers. The response provided projective data to support improvement ratings by the staff.)
Dr B.: Right. And the third one?
T.: That (pointing to Card III).
Dr B.: And what about this one?
T.: Because it looks like people and they’re doing everyday-like things.
Dr B.: Okay. Now tell me the three you like the least, the ones that would bother you or what bothers you most in that?
T.: This one because it looks like a bat and I don’t like bats (Card V).
Dr B.: What is there about bats that bother you?
T.: Like I don’t know, it’s something about them that I don’t like.
Dr B.: Like what?
T.: The way they can just bite you. (She had multiple scars on her arms resulting from self-inflicted injuries. While she did not bite herself but used knives, the ‘biting’ symbolism is apparent.)
Dr B.: Okay. And the second one that bothers you the most?
T.: This one (pointing to Plate IV)
Dr B.: What bothers you about that?
T.: Because it’s a dragon (a threatening mythical creature symbolically denoting her abusive mother).
Dr B.: A dragon? And what does the dragon recall?
T.: Hurtful things.
Dr B.: Like what?
T.: Like … I don’t know, it looks evil.
Dr B.: In what way?
T.: Like it’s just out there to get you.
Dr B.: Okay. And then the third one that bothers you?
T.: (Pointing to Plate I)
Dr B.: And what is there to fear?
T.: Because it also looks like an evil face, like it’s laughing at me.
Dr B.: What does that remind you of?
T.: My mom provoking me. (Here there is no symbolic defence. What emerged in projective consciousness was a real-life image of her abusive mother.)
Dr B.: Uh-huh. That isn’t fun when she provokes you, is it? How do you feel?
T.: I feel it’s hurtful. (This term is the same that she associated with the ‘dragon’, second most threatening Rorschach Plate. For the preceding two years, her mother had maintained sobriety. She was no longer severely beating her daughter and son. She had gone to an alcohol treatment centre after welfare workers threatened to take custody of her children.)
<Level B>Transcription of SIS-I Structured Interview
Dr B.: No. Okay. I’m going to have this … put these away. Now we’re going to look at the SIS Cards. Here’s your first card. What do you see there?
T.: I see a lot of things … the red parts look like two birds.
Dr B.: Uh-huh.
T.: And then it looks like two people. They’re both ladies.
Dr B.: Uh-huh.
T.: And looks like they’re dancing.
Dr B.: And how does it make you feel?
T.: Cheerful. (At times she felt joy.)
Dr B.: Yeah. Okay. Now what do you see in the second one?
T.: That part looks like a heart. And this part looks like a man’s head and a whole like his chest— head.
Dr B.: Okay. The third?
T.: Looks like a man and a woman. Looks like they’re talking.
Dr B.: Number four.
T.: That top part looks like an apple and the other part looks like a lady … looks like she’s just blackened somewhere.
Dr B.: Okay. Five?
T.: Looks like a turtle … and the left part … looks like parts … looks like a man’s head … his head and there’s his neck and chest.
Dr B.: Six?
T.: Looks like two seals and that part in the middle looks like a person, stick figure and then on a heart.
Dr B.: Number seven?
T.: That part looks like a heart full of fun and the back part looks like a dragon. There’s his neck and there’s his body. (Like on the Rorschach, the ‘dragon’ emerges again to symbolize the aggressive side of her mother and that portion of herself which had identified with the mother’s aggressive behaviour. The associations which follow further provide insight into the meaning of the symbol.)
Dr B.: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
T.: It seems like it’s a sign between evil and good. (This ‘sign’ directly symbolizes her own personality splitting and personality tendencies to dissociate.)
Dr B.: What part’s evil, what part’s good?
T.: It’s the dragon’s evil and the heart’s good.
Dr B.: Okay. Thank you. Here comes eight.
T.: It looks like a ribcage. This is a person’s body, and this is like the heart.
Dr B.: Yeah. Here is Card 9.
T.: It reminds me of, you know, those ultrasounds where they put that down at the belly.
Dr B.: Right.
T.: That looks like twins … babies in there … Every time I see a baby, it’s something like someone coming onto me. It makes me feel good.
Dr B.: How about Card 10?
T.: Looks like a piece of meat, like from a cow or something.
Dr B.: Any feelings?
T.: I don’t like it when people kill cows or animals for their meat. That makes me real angry.
Dr B.: Card 11?
T.: Looks like a snake.
Dr B.: And how do you feel looking at that?
T.: Fear, because I don’t like snakes.
Dr B.: What do you not like about them?
T.: They can bite you. (Her concerns about being bitten here and in the ‘bat’ Rorschach response represent projections about her injuries from both her mother and her own self-mutilating behaviours.
Dr B.: Okay. Card 12.
T.: Like a dragon. Like a dragon but a good one. (Here the mythic symbol denotes her ‘good’ side. This illustrates how the immediate emotional linkage to an image can provide clues as to the symbolism.)
Dr B.: How do you feel looking at it?
T.: Happy.
Dr B.: Card 13.
T.: It reminds of a heart … going bad emotionally (turns it upside down).
Dr B.: And … okay. You turn it upside down and it reminds you of a heart going bad and what does it recall?
T.: Like a person that’s heartless, like hateful. Looks like something took control of it.
Dr B.: Does that remind you of any of your own issues?
T.: Yeah.
Dr B.: Right. What?
T.: My internal depression because when I am injured or depressed. It’s like I become heartless, like I don’t care.
Dr B.: And you want to hurt yourself?
T.: Yeah, or others.
Dr B.: What way do you want to hurt yourself and what way do you want to hurt others?
T.: Oh myself, I would hurt myself physically, and others, I’m going to hurt them mentally.
Dr B.: And do you know why you want to hurt yourself physically?
T.: Because of all the mistakes I’ve made in life.
Dr B.: When you cause physical pain, how does it affect you emotionally?
T.: It takes my mind off all my worries. (No matter how distressing physical pain is ‘out there in the body’. Emotional suffering is much closer to the self-concept and therefore usually much more disturbing. Inducing somatic pain by self-mutilation can take the focus off mental distress, thereby providing temporary relief.)
Dr B.: And when you hurt others, how do you hurt others?
T.: I like to make them do everything to me, I’m happy and so I hurt them emotionally.
Dr B.: By doing what or….
T.: Giving them the treatment that they give me, like a taste of their own medicine or calling them names.
Dr B.: Do you ever hurt people that have never done anything to you?
T.: No.
Dr B.: No? Okay. Card 14.
T.: I would say about an animal’s head like it’s getting a cat scan or rainbows and makes me feel good because like they’re trying to find out about animals and they’re helping the animal.
Dr B.: You like animals.
T.: I love them.
Dr B.: Yeah. Number 15?
T.: Looks like a crocodile.
Dr B.: And how do you feel looking at it?
T.: Fearful because I don’t like crocodiles.
Dr B.: Because?
T.: Because they can kill people. (Another highly threatening projection.)
Dr B.: Okay Card 16?
T.: Looks like two ostriches’ heads.
Dr B.: Okay. We’re getting near the end. Card 17?
T.: It looks like a heart with a knife going through it. (Clinical experience indicates that the ‘knife in the heart’ symbolism can represent extreme hatred and/or homicidal impulses.)
Dr B.: And how does that make you feel and what does that recall?
T.: It recalls of hate.
Dr B.: And when you think of hate, what comes to mind?
T.: A person that doesn’t care about how other people feel, just does what they want.
Dr B.: Do you ever feel hate towards your mother?
T.: Yes.
Dr B.: In what way? And towards yourself?
T.: In a way that it feels like she doesn’t care for me.
Dr B.: In what way you see yourself?
T.: That I’m a burden to others.
Dr B.: Card 18?
T.: Looks like two angels.
Dr B.: Two what?
T.: Angels.
Dr B.: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And how does that make you feel?
T.: Peaceful.
Dr B.: When you think of angels, what comes to mind?
T.: Guardian angels that help you….
Dr B.: Do you think of your … do you have a guardian angel?
T.: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Dr B.: Tell me about her or him.
T.: She’s always near me. She’s with me right now. She’s with me right at the door and….
Dr B.: And you feel more secure?
T.: Yeah, at peace; and she helped me when I needed to put myself back on track. She tells me when I need to do that. (Angels personify positive feminine maternal spirituality. They are imagined to be human-like creatures with wings, able to fly to heaven. This fantasy helps her and partially makes up for the poor nurturing received from her mother.)
Dr B.: Okay. Card 19?
T.: Looks like two birds—gooses and they’re carrying babies on their necks.
Dr B.: Okay. And how do you feel looking at that?
T.: Happy. (Her frequent imaging of ‘babies’ relates to her own frustrated needs for being nurtured.)
Dr B.: Right. The last one, Card 20?
T.: Looks like two swordfish.
Dr B.: Two what?
T.: Swordfish.
Dr B.: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Okay. Can you tell me the three cards that you like the most? (She selected 5, 9 and 18.)
Dr B: Now tell me the three that you dislike starting with the one that you dislike the most?
T.: This one (17).
Dr B.: What is there about that bothers you the most?
T.: It reminds me of hatefulness.
Dr B.: Okay. And then the next one that bothers you the most?
T.: This one (7).
Dr B.: And what bothers you there?
T.: Reminds me of evilness.
Dr B.: All right and one more.
T.: This one (13).
Dr B.: What does that remind you of?
T.: Evilness and hatefulness. (Her memory storage is flooded with hateful imagery.)
Dr B.: Okay. This one (presenting Plate I of the Rorschach again) reminds you of your mother’s face sometimes?
T.: Yeah.
Dr B.: And do you see your mother in your dreams much or her face?
T.: No.
Dr B.: Does she appear in your dreams much?
T.: No. (Normally, her sleep was protected by symbolic images. While these were highly threatening, apparently, they were less so than experiencing memories of her mother directly.)
<Level B>Imagery Released by the SIS-II Video
Dr B.: This is like looking at what you saw in the video (showing her the SIS answer sheet). You indicated that you liked A16 the most and why was that?
T.: Because it reminds me of nature and I’m a nature lover. (She had retained some of her Alaskan native spiritual appreciation of beauty in the physical world.)
Dr B.: And then B19, what did you see there?
T.: I said I’m trying to get hearts because it’s—one heart is broken.
Dr B.: And what appealed to you about that?
T.: It reminded me of myself. (Here, she can identify closely with the imagery released in the form of projective response.)
Dr B.: In what way?
T.: That I’m trying to grasp for something that I—that’s broken inside me.
Dr B.: In what way have you felt like your heart’s broken?
T.: Like I have no hope and some stuff.
Dr B.: You’ve got lots of hope. I know when we feel down, we don’t feel that way through, but you do feel you have some hope now, don’t you?
T.: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Dr B.: Good girl. And then B28, you liked that one. It’s a nice one. It’s one of my favourites. What do you see there?
T.: A girl holding a baby. (She could not conjure up the normative response depicting a nurturing mother since she never had one. She could identify somewhat with the ‘girl’ because she had nurtured her beloved brother.)
Dr B.: And why do you like that?
T.: I love babies.
Dr B.: Next, let’s look at those that you liked the least. The one that bothered you the most was B29. You indicated that it reminded you of the devil. (The dream symbol under projective examination!) It may be of significance that it emerged in projective consciousness with the SIS-II Video. This projective procedure involves relaxation instructions, hypnotic floral photographs presented in a dreamlike moving manner. In addition, the light in the video presentation can approximate the visual vividness of dream imagery.
T.: Yeah.
Dr B.: In what way?
T.: And it just seems odd because there’s a man there and it’s like he’s going (the symbolic figure was moving towards her in a threatening fashion—just like in the dream). There is a shadow of his leg.
Dr B.: Right. (In a demonic fashion, mother had repeatedly beaten her and her brother with objects such as a belt, a cooking spoon and a coat hanger. She would find some minor excuse for the assault such as they’re not completing a domestic chore. She would make them take down their pants and beat them on the bare buttocks. She reported that mother would sometimes smile, during the beatings, apparently enjoying the sadistic power.She had witnessed many beatings of her brother and felt great rage towards her mother as a result. The physical abuse stopped two years previously after her brother showed scars on his buttocks to a social worker. As a result, their mother was warned that she could have the children taken from her.)
Dr B.: In your dreams, does the devil remind you of your devil dreams in anyway?
T.: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. It’s like to some extent; he looks like that, like … you really can’t see the details of him, but he’s sorts of shaded too. That’s what he looks like.
Dr B.: So that—and that—how does that affect you in your dream and then looking at it now? What emotion does it cause?
T.: Oh, hate (her mind is flooded with hatred).
Dr B.: Hate? Yeah. Okay. And now B31 reminded you of death. In what way does it?
T.: Because it looks like shadows of a family and—but ghost like. (In her devil dream she and her were both killed. She also has had homicidal impulses when witnessing her mother beating her brother. Moreover, she feared for her mother’s safety when intoxicated and involved with abusive men).
Dr B.: Right. Do you think about death much in terms of your family?
T.: Not as often as I used to. I used to fear death and think of it all the time, scared that something was going to happen. (Her mother had treatment and had maintained sobriety for two years prior to this hospitalization.)
Dr B.: And who were you afraid would be visited by death in your family?
T.: My family, my mom and my brother.
Dr B.: How about your own death? Do you think about that much?
T.: Yes.
Dr B.: What sort of thoughts?
T.: Of killing myself.
Dr B.: And those are thoughts you had in the past or do you still get them occasionally?
T.: I—in the past. (Here, she denied current suicide ideation. However, in subsequent moments of depression it did transiently return.)
Dr B.: Right. Okay. And then B15 was the third one and you saw…
T.: Oh, no, that’s wrong.
Dr B.: Oh. Well….
T.: No! No! No! No! (It is threatening to the point of stimulating a perseveration type of denial). Take this off!! (Scratching on scribbles in B15). Because it looks like a drawing a child would draw!
Dr B.: Uh-huh [affirmative].
T.: Because of the scribbles and everything and it has knives in there! (Seeing knives here was very threatening. It triggered memories of past suicidal thoughts and plans to murder her mother by stabbing her in the heart. It also provoked recollection of homicidal thoughts towards her mother. Related to the dream in which her brother was killed by ‘Lucifer’ by cutting cross like wounds, it also tapped into the complexities of the strong love–hate relationship with him. In speaking about their relationship, she emphasized the positive intimacy of their early years. However, in this stage of her life, being two years older than her, he had abandoned her for multiple superficial relationships with older girls. He had also psychologically removed himself by entering a world of impaired consciousness from alcohol and drugs. Moreover, he had been hospitalized for trying to kill himself. While she did not want to lose him, part of hers—the demonic side—wanted to hurt him to make him pay back for her suffering. In her troubled mind, she wondered: What could be more devilish than to murder a brother, that despite his abandonment, she still loved him? She was terrified that she would lose control and the sight of knives in the video overwhelmed her.)
Dr B.: Okay. And what were your thoughts sort of like?
T.: Because it makes me sad to know that kids draw stuff like that. It means they’re troubled (the ‘kids’ represent a projection of her image).
Dr B.: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
T.: And I don’t —I like kids to be happy.
Dr B.: In the dream, the nightmare, the devil cuts your brother or how did he…
T.: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Dr B.: And what did he use?
T.: Well, using his hand.
Dr B.: He didn’t have a knife or…
T.: Like he—just like he had powers.
Dr B.: It was done through magic or evil magic.
T.: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Dr B.: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Yeah. When you’re cutting on yourself with a knife, how do you know what’s it like?
T.: It just relieves my emotional pain (witnessing the blood and feeling the physical pain—while intense, it took her mind off the greater suffering that she was tormented with emotionally).
The analysis of dream imagery can often be of great clinical importance. However, consistent with Einstein’s observation, such images are not readily ‘countable’ for statistical analysis. It may be recalled that there was a significant discrepancy in the number of devil dreams reported. At one stage, she spontaneously referred to many such dreams, but later she could only recall one other.
The nature of the dreaming state has since been extensively studied. This work ranges from studies which focus on the psychological to those whose orientation is primarily biological. In attempting to provide modern theoretical pathways for integrating the two levels, Reiser (2001) recently surveyed the literature in attempting to conceptually bridge these two levels of enquiry. In response to Reiser’s review, Zuk and Zuk (2002) cited certain problem areas for investigators.
One concerns communication difficulties since when neuroscientists and psychoanalysts talk about ‘the dream’, ‘affect’ or ‘emotion’, the terms mean different things. They also observed that ‘REM, while an interesting phenomenon and the subject of much excitement by neuroscientists, says little or nothing about the meaning of the dream’. Also, they pointed out that Reiser’s review clearly indicated that Freud’s notion of the dream as wish fulfilment is either incorrect or a gross simplification that fails to consider alternative motives.
To partially consider the conceptual framework for the present case history study, perhaps it might be helpful to cite the conclusions of William Domhoff, a well-published dream investigator, whose research has relied heavily on content analysis approaches (Domhoff 1996, 1999, 2000). He recently summarized certain of his observations as follows:
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Based upon solid empirical studies concerning (1) the neural network that makes dreaming possible, (2) the development of dreaming in children and (3) the everyday content of thousands of dream reports, it is unlikely that dreaming is ‘necessary’ or that any clinical theory of dreams has any value beyond that dreams contain some psychological information.
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Recognizing the complexity of the field and the multiple methodological problems, it is hoped that the ‘Lucifer’ dream under consideration provides in Domhoff’s terminology ‘some information’. For years, this adolescent girl was severely abused by her Native Alaskan mother. Her culture is disintegrating rapidly. There is a high prevalence of alcoholism and violence-related behaviours. Adolescent males have the highest rate of suicide in America so her fears for her depressed brother were justified.
During childhood development, multiple sources of sensory input from this abuse were recorded neurochemically. However, the secondary recall of such traumatic images apparently had failed to appear in her recurrent ‘nightmares’. When asked on several occasions if she ever relived any of the terrible abusive scenes involving herself and her brother, she consistently said: No! Of course, there is no way to really know if this was the case. Perhaps she was aware of such dreams but because of emotional discomfort she did not want to report them. Alternatively, she may have been aware of them shortly after they occurred and then ‘forgot’ them because of anxiety-induced neural inhibition.
In any case, she was terribly tormented by intrusive memories of the abusive scenes during the day. In sharp contrast, her sleep was protected by symbolic images. One of these was the vision of ‘Lucifer’. No matter how terrifying this was, apparently it was less threatening than activating from memory storage real-life images of her mother’s abuse.
Apart from the dream under scrutiny, she recalled only one other terrifying dream of the devil. She was able to recall that this occurred at age of 11: ‘I was in my closet and the devil appeared. He was small and his brain was exposed, I was twisting a hanger around in his brain’. This disturbed her sleep when she was first attempting to understand her traumatic family life. Prior to therapy, she was confused and mentally preoccupied: ‘Why does mother hate me so much? What did I do to deserve the beatings? I must have deserved them. I should hurt myself. I don’t deserve to live. I should kill myself, etc.’ Her mental preoccupation with these issues caused her to focus on her own brain. She introduced this anatomical awareness into her dream imagery along with an object (the ‘hanger’) that she just had been beaten with by her mother. This dream preceded her first hospitalization and suicidal behaviour. At the time she was first beginning to get the almost delusional belief that some evil force from the devil was penetrating her nervous system accounting for her own demonic thoughts and murderous fantasies.
Sometimes she would get angry at herself and would punish herself by self-mutilating behaviours with knives. Her extreme arousal in viewing SIS-II Video Image B15 depicting ‘Knives’ was understandable. This irrational thinking surfaced in the early stages of her fourth hospitalization in the ‘Lucifer’ dream. It may be recalled that she related the onset of her sense of her body image being penetrated to when she originally played an Ouija game. In association with the fundamental Christian mind distorting dogma that she had been exposed to in a Seventh-day Adventist Church, she erroneously believed that the demonic forces had entered her body.
Apart from the devil symbol, many other threatening symbols flooded her dreams. Examples of such symbolic material spilling over into projective consciousness with the Rorschach in her third hospitalization six months earlier are as follows:
Card I: ‘A bear trying to escape from a very strong woman, she looks like my mother.’ Here, she identified with the ‘bear’ and the ‘very strong woman’ symbolized her mother as being very powerful and threatening.
Card II: ‘Two big animals playing patty cake. One is a bear and he looks like he is wounded because of the red blood.’ The bleeding ‘bear’ symbolized her own injuries from the severe beatings.
Card IV: ‘A monster, this way it looks like a dragon, here are his eyes, he’s got horns and wings’; these two responses could symbolize her abusive mother. It also could have depicted that part of her emerging personality that was identifying with the demonic side of her mother. She also imagined it to be an ‘explosion with smoke coming out from everywhere’ and gave a similar response to the next card. Both responses symbolized her memory of violent domestic scenes.
In addition and reminiscent of her attempting to hide in the closet from her abusive mother in real life and the symbolism inherent in running from Lucifer in her dream, seeing this card also evoked imagery as follows: ‘It could also be a tunnel, something that you could hide in’. On Card VIII, the violent imagery continued to be released in projective consciousness as ‘a volcano with lava exploding’. On Card X, this theme continued with the response: ‘This is a building, there is water below, in front these are fireworks going off, it is colourful, like fireworks going off, looks explosive here’.
Like many fundamental Christians, she had learned to personify the ‘Devil’ and referred to him as ‘Lucifer’. To such concrete thinking people, it probably would seem pointless—if not heresy in her church—to try to understand what ‘Lucifer’ symbolized.
This sharply contrasts with clinicians who explore dream symbolism as an integral part of the diagnostic/treatment process. In this analytic quest, those who employ the power of projective methodology are much more likely to unmask the ‘Devil’. In the present study, it may be inferred that ‘Lucifer’ embodies both her mother’s abusive nature and that part of the adolescent’s personality identified with the mother. About the latter, the responses revealed this side of her. One example was her response to SIS-I when she detailed how she had the capacity not only to hurt herself but others. Her extreme hatred and homicidal ideation were also symbolized in the ‘knife in the heart’ response.
Apart from the satanic, there are many other forms of symbolic imagery in threatening dreams. For example, children frequently observe dream of grotesque human or animal-like biting apparitions. They commonly label them as ‘monsters’. The specific form of these is strongly influenced by the reality of their culture.
However, this earlier primitive oral aggressive imagery is replaced. This is especially true of severely disturbed adolescents with poorly controlled aggressive impulses. Perpetrated by the brainwashing techniques of fundamentalist religious leaders, satanic symbols can emerge in dream imagery.
The concrete thinking implicit in personifying the threatening humanoid figures as the ‘Devil’ can be extreme. For example, satanic cults have evolved historically which in an organized fashion worship ‘Satan’. Personal identities of such members may be closely linked with socially unacceptable sexual and aggressive behaviour. When their actions become day residual for night-time dreams, a cycle of evil imagery and behaviour becomes operational. Its reinforcement by the saturation of violence in the media amplifies the system.
Studies of anxiety-laden dreams employing PTs can provide insights into the origins of violence in children and adolescents. Hopefully, such investigations could provide new approaches for developing more effective methods of early detection and prevention. Young people need to have their threatening dreams taken as a possible early symptom of trauma. They need to be listened to with compassion and serious consideration by members of the healing profession, as well as authority figures in education, religion and politics.
This is especially true for those from dysfunctional families where guilt and ignorance may allow their parents to dismiss their suffering by denial and rationalization. For example, the abusive mother in this case history study argued that: ‘I did not abuse my children, they were just getting the punishment they deserved’ and regarding her daughter’s terrifying dreams ‘They mean nothing, all children have nightmares!’
Her rationalization was not challenged. She herself was a victim of childhood family abuse. Such a generational pattern of abuse can only be broken through early intervention therapies—including the use of PTs.