{"id":122556,"date":"2021-05-20T11:00:41","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T10:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.harleytherapy.co.uk\/counselling\/?p=122556"},"modified":"2023-03-09T18:04:32","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T18:04:32","slug":"dream-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.harleytherapy.co.uk\/counselling\/dream-therapy.htm","title":{"rendered":"Dream Therapy – Is it Still Used by Psychotherapists?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dreamby Andrea M. Darcy<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Do therapists<\/a> still ask about dreams? Can you find dream therapy if you feel your dreams or nightmares are telling you things?<\/span><\/p>\n

The history of dreams and psychotherapy<\/span><\/h2>\n

The world of modern Western psychotherapy largely began with<\/strong> Freud<\/a> and \u2018psychoanalysis<\/a>\u2019 . And Freud relied on dreams in his work with patients. <\/span><\/p>\n

His friend turned enemy and main challenger to <\/strong>the \u2018therapy throne\u2019 was Jung<\/a>, who also made dreams an important part of his version of client work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This was carried even further by<\/strong> Adler, a psychotherapist who saw dreams as a positive tool, and the mind as a working whole that dreams were a part of.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But what happened in the 21st century? Why is\u00a0 dream interpretation and dreamwork no longer something<\/strong> the majority of new psychotherapists learn in their clinical training?<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Freud and dream interpretation <\/span><\/h2>\n

For Freud, dreams were our unconscious mind\u2019s way of<\/strong> sharing our repressed, unacceptable desires<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

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His book \u2018the Interpretation of Dreams\u2019 suggests we all have primitive, infantile wishes we can no longer fulfil in our adult waking lives where we must \u2018repress\u2019 such wishes. We can only live them out in dreams. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Freud would have his patients tell them his dreams. He\u2019d then have the<\/strong> client do \u2018free association\u2019 around the images from the dreams. Freud would offer his interpretation, combining his understanding of the patient, and his knowledge of symbolic meanings<\/a>. This meant the power to decide what the dream meant lay with the therapist, not the client.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"dream

photo by Bruce Christianson<\/p><\/div>\n

So a dream you were killing a bee that kept coming back to life might be interpreted as a repressed desire to destroy a colleague<\/a> that keeps nagging you. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Carl Jung and dreamwork <\/span><\/h2>\n

Jung challenged the idea that our dreams were our<\/strong> unacceptable desires and neuroses. He suggested that dreams were a healthy and creative way<\/a> for our unconscious to show us issues and feelings we needed to address<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

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More importantly, Jungian therapy doesn\u2019t put the meaning of the dream in the hands of the therapist, but of the client. The therapists job is to help the client find ways of understanding their dreams that works best for them. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So while Jung did use free association like Freud, he also turned to<\/strong> archetypes<\/a> and myths, and artistic expression. <\/span><\/p>\n

So working with a Jungian therapist, a dream about a mean mother<\/a> stopping you from taking a journey might be something you journal and draw about. Only to discover the mean mother is you, and the journey is your life. You are controlling<\/a> yourself too much, and stopping yourself from moving forward in life. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Alfred Adler and dreams<\/span><\/h2>\n

Adler suggested the revolutionary idea that our conscious and unconscious minds are really the same<\/strong>, a working unit and not two warring entities. <\/span><\/p>\n

He felt dreams were our mind\u2019s way to help us<\/strong> solve problems and prepare for future challenges. <\/span><\/p>\n

So if we dream of fighting off a bear, for example, our mind is preparing us to have confidence when we have to talk to our boss<\/a> about needing a raise. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Modern day dreamwork and psychotherapy<\/span><\/h2>\n
\"dreamwork\"<\/a>

By: photosteve101<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Since Freud, Jung, and Adler, there has been an explosion<\/strong> of research on dreams, and of proposals for how to work with them. <\/span><\/p>\n

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And yet a survey<\/span><\/a> of therapists found they discussed dreams with only 15 per cent of clients, and only spent five per cent of a given session to discuss such dreams.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To be fair, most of these therapists were<\/strong> cognitive analytical based therapists,<\/a> not from the school of psychoanalysis, which has dreams as a core concept. <\/span>But\u00a0another survey<\/a> of modern day psychoanalysts found that even they only seem to spend about 50% of their time working with dreams these days.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Have dreams gone out of vogue?<\/span><\/h2>\n

In the first of the studies mentioned above, clients who hadn’t bought up their dreams stated their reasons as not even thinking to do so, or just thinking there were more pressing things to discuss than dreams.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We <\/b>live in a society where we can talk<\/strong> more freely about our issues, and can explore most of our desires. So perhaps some of us don’t see our dreams as the fascinating, hidden world they were once seen as, despite them being a rich source of information.<\/span><\/p>\n

Modern life also means <\/strong>many of us sleep poorly.<\/a> If we do dream, we are so rushed in the morning we\u2019ve forgotten our dream by the time we get to work, and don’t have time to care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As for therapy, it goes through trends and fashions as much as anything. And the last few decades have been focused less on the workings of our unconscious, and more on the link between our thoughts, feelings, and actions – cognition and behaviour. This is clear in the popularity of ‘cognitive behavioural therapy’ (CBT)<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

PTSD nightmares treatment<\/span><\/h2>\n

One area where dreams are getting more instead of less attention these days is<\/strong> post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)<\/a>. Many sufferers are left navigating repetitive, exhaustive nightmares. <\/span><\/p>\n

Image rehearsal therapy (IRT) is a modern-day technique used by<\/strong> cognitive behavioural therapists<\/a>. The idea here is that the therapist helps you \u2018re-imagine\u2019 your bad dream with a better outcome. This can look like:<\/span><\/p>\n