Robert Desoille (May 29, 1890 - October 10, 1966) was a French psychotherapist who developed a therapeutic method based on waking dreams known as Directed Waking Dream method (rêve eveillé dirigé, or RED). The French psychoanalyst, Jacques Chazaud, in a review of Desoille’s work Entretiens sur le rêve éveillé dirigé en psychothérapie (1973), claimed ‘le rêve-éveillé de Desoille est la seule trouvaille qui compte depuis Freud/ the waking dream of Desoille is the only worthy discovery after Freud (my translation).’ However, in comparison to Freud and Jung, Desoille is a less known figure in psychology, whose contributions of the directed waking-dream approach deserve much more attention.
Desoille was born in Besançon into a family of military officers and was trained as an engineer. While his profession was that of an engineer his vocation was definitely a therapeutic one. After his 1923 meeting with Colonel Eugène Caslant, who introduced him to an experimental mental imaging technique, he developed his method of the directed waking dream, which he expanded upon in seven books.
The Waking-Dream (RED) Method
Desoille defined the waking dream as ‘an intermediary stage between the waking state and the dreaming state, between the physiological and the psychical’ (1961). He compared this state to that induced by Freud in his early ‘pressure technique’ (SE, p.109-11). For Desoille, the waking dream expressed an ‘intimate language’, as described by the French philosopher Georges Politzer, about the patient’s affective interior life including his emotional deficits, psychic conflicts and desires.
Desoille would give an ‘image de depart/ initial stimulus’ to the patient lying relaxed on a couch and the patient would let his imagination work on the stimulus and create an inner ‘oneiric’ drama. The therapist placed behind the subject, would sometimes intervene to either specify part of imaginary space or to encourage the patient to explore the heights or the depths of his imaginary space which he or she would be immersed in. In another phase of the therapeutic work, the subject would write a written report which will be used in a face-to-face session in order to explore the meaning of the scenario. For children, the method is adjusted and the children would work with: with their eyes open. The child would sit at a table and draw or act out the scenario they imagine.
Influences and legacy
At the theoretical level, Desoille was influenced first by Sigmund Freud, then by Carl Gustav Jung and finally, following his membership of the French Communist Party, he modelled his theory on Pavlovian behaviouristic principles. Desoille's first writings in the 1920s were published with the help of the Genevan analyst Charles Baudouin. Desoille built his theories on the works of Freud, Pierre Janet, and Roland Dalbiez. He studied the relationship between symbolism, invention, and memory in his early works, underscoring the applicability of the directed waking dream method in exploring sublimation. In the 1940s, Desoille was influenced by Jung's collective unconscious and presented his own conception of the mind based on Freud's three instances. Desoille believed that the transference described by Freud, could be expressed and resolved in the directed waking dream itself. Finally, in the 1950s and 1960s, in line with his political affiliations, Desoille embraced a Pavlovian conception of neurosis, based on reflexes, in what was termed a "rational psychotherapy". Desoille died at age 76 in Paris.
Desoille’s ideas about his rêve-éveillé-dirigé method (RED) can be found in five of his books which he published between 1938 and 1961 and three others who were published post-humously. His ideas can also be found in his many articles mainly published in Action et Pensée starting as early as 1923, and several lectures in conferences which he gave during his life both in France and abroad.
Desoille himself did not found any school to continue to divulge his method during his lifetime. Nonetheless, several of his pupils continued his work, after their master’s death, both in Continental Europe and in America by forming different groups and psychotherapy institutes. Some disciples chose to integrate Desoille’s method within a psychoanalytic framework namely Freudian, Kleinian and Lacanian. Other schools remained more loyal to the original spirit of Desoille. Desoille’s method has been colonised by other psychotherapy approaches with little or no recognition of Desoille’s original contribution to imaginative psychotherapy. Authors that cite Desoille's work include Charles Baudouin, Gaston Bachelard, Juliette Favez-Boutonier, Françoise Dolto, Daniel Lagache and Frantz Fanon.