Marsha,
What is taking place in working with your emotions is the underlying unconscious energies that motivate you to be who you are. These energies primarily stem from early life learning, experiences as young as an infant that are embedded in your psyche and are fixed impressions on how your personality and personal attitudes respond to stimuli as an adult. A primary purpose of dreams is to expose these unconscious and unknown energies to the conscious mind so you can make changes where needed. Resolution of the negative forces which control your personality and attitudes is how you make the necessary changes.

But there is more. Not only are there unconscious energies related to childhood experiences and influences, there are the natural imprinted instructions we all are born with that must be taken in account as well. These are Jung's Archetypes {as I noted in my analysis}. Upon birth an infant's natural inclination is to be held by the mother at her breasts to provide emotional as well as physical nourishment. Just as the turtle knows to run to the water upon hatching, humans are also provided a set of blueprints for life. When these are lacking the psyche becomes out of balance and a correct is needed. We all have emotional deficiencies and dreams are nature's tool to help resolve what is out of balance. Some like myself are fortunate to be able to find solutions through self psychology {I have spent 25 years working with my own psyche and have resolved the largest issues}. But that requires as much time and effort as does seeing a therapist/psychologist. Those professionals who use dreams to make contact with the deep unconscious can cut that time drastically because the dream is a direct link to the deepest psyche energies. The body has the immune system to heal and protect the psychical self. It is nature's intent. So to the psych{ology} has the dream to perform the same function for the mind/intellect.

You stated you are seeking help. Continue to pursue that path and stay with the notion you need to resolve these issues. If left unattended the unconscious energies will continue to plague your life and harmony and happiness will always be illusive.

As for my analysis. Using basic Jungian concepts along with intuitive sensing {a natural talent I only discovered and began to utilize when I was 42} allows a trained dream analyst to provide an outline of the emotional energies I spoke to in the above narrative. Not only the personal deficiencies but also the archetypal. The outline lays out the emotional energies that motivate the dreamer's life. When an analyst has a extensive knowledge of the dreamer's life, past and present, he/she can provide insights if not direct information about the current waking life issues. My knowledge is very limited when providing analysis at the Dream Forum but even with having the age and gender of the dreamer it is possible to provide an outline of the controlling energies. There are many like myself who are capable of providing this, professional {trained Jungian therapists} as well as laypersons {like myself, self trained}.

All dreams, all dream images/actions have at least two meanings/applications. One is focused on the underlying foundational aspects {childhood experiences/influences which helped form the personality and personal attitudes}. You are who you are primarily because of what the developing psyche learns/experiences during early and the developing years in life. Like parents like children. What you grew up experiencing as a child is the model your life is built upon. The emotional energies that motivate are the production of images and actions in our dreams. When these symbolic images/actions are translated into everyday language you have an outline of what they are.

Another application of dreams is working to expose how these foundational aspects ferment into actions as an adult. When you have a conflict at work or school the dream is attempting to help resolve those issues as well. But why do you act/react to certain situations in a particular way? That often goes back to the foundational aspects. Of course later life traumatic experiences can play a role as well. Going to war and coming back with PTSD is an example. In some instances prescribed drugs will help alleviate the problems but to get to the source and find a final solution requires an examination of the psyche energies. The drugs are temporary whereas the therapy can resolve the issues to the point the dreamer has control.

Continue to seek therapeutic help. It would be beneficial to learn all you can about the underlying emotional energies I have described as well. When working with an analyst, a developed sense of what is needed will help facilitate a resolution to the emotional issues. My Power of Dreams provides a lot of info about these unconscious energies and how they manifest themselves in dreams. My Myths-Dreams-Symbols website {online since 1998} has nearly 500 pages dedicated to Jungian dream psyche as well as Joseph Campbell and others who provide important insights to the unconscious, personal and collective.

Jerry