Abstract

OGDEN, Thomas H.  and  MUSZKAT, Susana. On three ways of thought: magical thinking, dream-like thinking and transformative thinking.Translated byAlain François. Rev. bras. psicanál [online]. 2012, vol.46, n.2, pp. 193-214. ISSN 0486-641X.

The author believes that contemporary psychoanalysis has shifted its emphasis from the understanding of the symbolic meaning of dreams, play and associations, to the study of the processes of thinking, dreaming, and playing. In this paper, he discusses his understanding of threeforms of thinking - magical thinking, dream-like thinking, and transformative thinking - and provides clinical illustrations in which each of these figures clearly. The author views magical thinking as a form that subverts genuine thinking and psychological growth by substituting a disturbing external reality with an invented psychic reality. By contrast, dream-like thinking - our most profound form - involves viewing an emotional experience from multiple perspectives simultaneously: for example, the perspectives of primary process and secondary process thinking. Transformative thinking, alternatively, creates a new way of ordering experience that allows one to generate types of feeling, forms of object relation, and characteristics of life that had previously been unimaginable.

Keywords : forms of thought; magical thinking; omnipotence fantasy; dream-like thinking; dreaming; transformative thinking.

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