Working With Dreams In Psychotherapy

In Dream Work in Therapy: Facilitating Exploration, Insight, and Action, distinguished researchers and clinicians explore Clara E. Hill's cognitive-experiential model for working with dreams. This book discusses the theoretical basis of the model and provides clear instructions for implementing it in practice. Through the use of valuable clinical examples, chapter authors present extensions of the model in specific settings and populations, such as groups, men, the bereaved, and nightmare sufferers. Of particular interest to readers will be the last part of the book, which describes how to train therapists to use the model and provides a detailed review of the model's empirical research. This approach offers therapists and their clients a structured but flexible method for maximizing the therapeutic benefits of working with dreams.

Working with dreams in therapy can help clients establish a focus and reach core issues quickly, and can play an important clinical role in both brief and long-term therapeutic relationships. This accessible volume integrates the latest research on sleep and dreaming with a cognitive-experiential psychotherapeutic perspective, providing a comprehensive guide to dream interpretation. In clear, jargon-free prose, elucidated by extensive case material, the author presents a three-stage model of dream interpretation based on the premises that dreams reflect waking life, that their meaning is best understood in a collaborative effort between client and therapist, and that both cognitions and emotions are important in this process. An Appendix contains a reproducible, self-guided manual on dream interpretation featuring step-by-step instructions and worksheets. This Appendix is an ideal resource for therapists to use with clients.

′Delia Cushway′s wealth of experience makes this new edition an essential read for all aspiring counsellors, psychologists and psychotherapists as well as for more experienced practitioners seeking to enhance their practice′ - Prof Sue Wheeler, Director of Doctoral Programme, Institute of Lifelong Learning ′I found the book fascinating, illuminating not only my client′s material but also my own night-life. The book′s strength lies in integrating perspectives from many different psychotherapeutic disciplines, from psychoanalytic to cognitive′ - Diana Sanders, Counselling Psychologist and Cognitive Psychotherapist This practical book shows how dreamwork can be a fruitful therapeutic tool for all therapists and practitioners in the helping professions. Emphasising that dreams are a powerful means of accessing an individual′s emotions, creativity and wisdom, Delia Cushway has updated the first edition to include: - Skills for working with trauma and survivors of sexual abuse - Cross-cultural, spiritual and religious approaches to dreamwork - Up-to-date research and theory on using Cognitive, Objectivist and Constructivist models and methods - The importance of reflective practice - Scientific functions and meanings of dreams and their role in information processing and memory consolidation. Steeped in practical hints and tips, vivid case examples and methods of interpreting dream language, this highly accessible guide is an invaluable resource for therapists. Delia Cushway is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology at Coventry University and a practising Registered Clinical Psychologist. Robyn Sewell is a Chartered Psychologist and Group Psychotherapist, now fully retired.

This monograph focuses on a systemic approach to dream interpretation and the unique importance of the initial dream. The first dream reported in a psychoanalytic therapy session poignantly encapsulates the major issues that the patient brings to the treatment. These dreams 'herald' the trajectory of the treatment and can be interpreted in the service of psychodynamic diagnosis and prognosis.The book melds aspects of Jungian dream analysis, with neo-Freudian analytic thought, current neurobiological concepts, and Buddhist psychology, to yield a rich and powerful understanding of how dreams symbolize the multifaceted aspects of the psyche. Multiple examples of initial dreams are discussed in detail, with suggestions for how they can inform the analytic stance and serve as objects for analysis over the course of a treatment.

Dreams told in the group are conjoint individual and group creations. They are both influenced by the group atmosphere and may in turn influence it and the individual, promoting change and development. Dreams have a deepening effect on therapeutic work and, due to their unconscious content, they may represent the most authentic exchange between individual and group. This state-of-the-art book provides help for therapists encountering a dream told in their group. It covers the major theoretical perspectives for their understanding, as well as representing different psychological schools and their approaches to the technical issues of group dream therapy. Despite the variety of sources, the clinical approaches described complement each other, and the book details many case studies, including a first dream in the group, an unconscious meeting between women and men, and other polarities within the individual and the group.

Existential Psychotherapy and the Interpretation of Dreams, by Clark Moustakas, presents a fresh model for the effective integration of dreamwork in humanistically oriented psychotherapy. The existential-phenomenological emphasis opens channels of conscious awareness that enable people in therapy and in everyday living to awaken to their own visions, hopes, and dreams. The internal shadows and fires of individual consciousness come to light in therapy and in dreams and invite self-resources and self-directions for change in self-growth and in significant relationships. An Existential Model is presented in detail as a guide to effective psychotherapy. With slight modification, the Model is also applicable to an understanding and interpretation of one's own dreams as well as the dreams of people who are in therapy. Through existential awareness and reflective thinking, the reader is encouraged to discover constructive challenges and paradoxes that connect dreams with waking life and lead to the discovery of creative possibilities for work and living. The existential approach to psychotherapy and dream interpretation is explicated through examples of phenomenological interviewing, use of description in lifting out horizons and core meanings, and analysis of core themes that intimately embrace the self. Existential philosophy recognizes mystery encompasses the unknown and unpredictable and asserts that regardless of past suffering and impoverishment, the potentials for health and well-being are within reach. The Existential Model offers a practical methodology and a set of guides for achieving these goals and finding a future that moves beyond the restraints and rejections that have resulted from choosing the wrong path for identity expression and selfhood. The person is the central catalyst for decision and action and retains control over her or his own destiny.

Expanded from a special issue of the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, this volume contains some of the most interesting and promising work on dreams coming from therapists and researchers working at the crossroads of cognitive therapy and other systemsófrom a reprint of Beck's only article on cognition and dreams to the influence of modern neurobiology on the use of dreams in cognitive therapy. These chapters provide a meta-theory of drams that is unique to the cognitive perspective. As such, they begin the process of generating a comprehensive cognitive model of dream work that includes cognitive, affective, physical and behavioral features from which future research and clinical innovations can be built.

This inspiring new book covers the practical side of dream interpretation during the therapeutic consultation. It aids the understanding of sleep and dreams in a scientific context and provides and introduction to the biological and evolutionary foundations of sleep, dreams and dream interpretation, supporting its use in professional counselling. "Dream Interpretation as a Psychotherapeutic Technique" covers cultural, historical and religious foundations of dreams and dream interpretation, and gives an overview of the various dream interpretation theories. Psychotherapists and psychiatrists with an interest in dream interpretation will find this guide invaluable. It will also be of great interest to psychologists, counsellors, therapists and general readers. 'Excellent and very accessible, helpful, useful and flexible. I would recommend this book to any student or beginning therapist interested in working with dreams.' - Ernest Hartmann, in the Foreword. 'This is an essential book on sleep, dreams, and dream interpretation. It will reawaken dream interpretation in clinical practice as a pragmatic tool for client self-awareness.' - T Gayle Yamazki. 'A life-long student of dreams brings decades of research and practice to bear in this scholarly and fascinating work. Coolidge reveals ancient writings, the influence of human evolution on our dream life, and the latest scientific insights. In the tradition of Freud, Jung, and Perls, he uses disarming personal examples, as well as those of his subjects to teach principles of dream interpretation. The practical steps he has developed quickly enrich the therapy process.' - Michael Galvin.