The Use of Dreams in Psychotherapy

A key tool for psychoanalysis is the use of dreams in psychotherapy. It can both verify the success of the analytic therapy and provide crucial details about the client’s personality or character to the analyst. Additionally, recurring patterns can be revealed by dreams, which can help the analyst better understand the client.

Perspectives on working with dreams alongside Psychotherapy

Although many patients have nightmares and bad dreams, psychotherapists are not frequently trained to work with dreams. This article offers clinical recommendations for treating nightmares and looks at how therapists can deal with these frequent phenomena in the clinical setting. The cognitive-behavioural model for working with dreams is also presented by the authors. How therapists react to dream material is greatly influenced by their theoretical orientation. In general, the theoretical orientation of a therapist has the biggest impact on how frequently, for how long, and with what kinds of activities dream material is used in psychotherapy.

Despite the fact that there is little actual time spent working with dreams, international studies show that dream material is frequently presented in therapy. Additionally, there is little clinical practise training on working with dreams, and little research has been done to evaluate how therapists use this information. The purpose of the current study is to pinpoint the recurring themes in therapists’ experiences using dreams as a tool for psychotherapy. Two databases, PsychINFO and the APA journal Dreaming, were systematically searched by researchers who then thematically analysed their findings.

Freudian interpretation of a dream

The Freudian interpretation of a dream is an effective tool in psychotherapy. It has the power to reveal a dream’s hidden meaning, which is sometimes difficult to decipher. According to Freudian theory, the id, a primitive and irrational aspect of the psyche, is represented by the dream. According to Freud, the id can express itself in dreams by acting out repressed desires and childish behaviours. Freud recognised a number of different sexual symbols in dreams. He thought that most dreams were sexual in nature. For instance, he thought the number three represented the penis. Additionally, he thought that anything that could hurt or cause pain was phallic in nature. Knives, lances, guns, and umbrellas were additional phallic symbols.

While Freud analyzed dreams frequently in his psychoanalysis, he also observed the impact they had on his patients. By studying these dreams, he was able to deduce that they were expressions of unfulfilled desires. By the end of his life, he had written many books on dream interpretation and his book became widely read in English and Russian. By 1938, it had been translated into six more languages. A total of seven editions were published before his death.

Adler’s approach to dream work

Although Alfred Adler is frequently credited as founding the field of dream work, his method is distinct from the conventional method. Adler was a young Jewish man from a suburb of Vienna who passed away in Aberdeen, Scotland. His method of psychotherapy involved exploring the patient’s past and changing their future. Adler believed that sending a postcard from Freud to a reporter in 1902 was evidence that he was not a disciple of the philosopher.

Adler’s work on dreams traces its roots in Freud’s work, but it differs in several ways. Essentially, it recognizes that the conscious and unconscious are not mutually exclusive and that they can be complementary and interconnected.