The introduction of the dream in the therapeutic path represents a precious tool that expands the therapist’s job possibilities: also in the cognitive behavioral area, structured work models are available today in reference, rationalist and constructivist epistemologies.
The use of dream in psychotherapy It was a theme from which standard behavioral psychotherapy has distanced itself, for two reasons. The first reason is connected to the need to distance itself from psychoanalysis: Freud at the beginning of the 900 makes the dream one of the key points of psychoanalytic theory, so the dream is one of the most important manifestations of unconscious life.
The second reason is linked to the difficulties of a rigorously empirical investigation in this regard.
On the basis of current developments in experimental research and with the emergence of constructivist theories And the interest in the scientific study of emotions is also perceived in the cognitivist field the importance of dreamlike activity, particularly in the clinic.
Cognitivisti consider the dream as a process produced by a single cognitive system that operates in the different phases of sleep, both in the Rem and non-Rem ones. The dream would therefore be a symbolic process of processing, interpretation, reorganization in a narrative sequence of the material accumulated in memory during the vigil. The cognitivist hypothesis is that the system that organizes the dream is the same that organizes language.
There constructivist perspectivehe resumed the work on the dream by moving the focus from thought processes to content and bringing a greater contribution centered on the narrative dimension and shared construction of meaning between the therapist and the patient: working with dreams therefore means attributing to them a meaning, bringing out a personal narrative in order to encourage the patient the awareness of the link between the thoughts relating to the dream, the emotions experienced and the actions.
In an article published in the magazine of cognitive and behavioral psychotherapy (vol. 21, n.3, 2015 pp. 285-301) the authors, after having outlined a short story about the use of the dream in the cognitive area and on the work models with the dream in the cognitive area, focus on analyzing the reasons why it can be useful to use the dream in psychotherapy work.
Working on dreams in psychotherapy can facilitate the therapeutic process, increasing the level of involvement of the patient in the therapeutic relationship. It can be useful from the therapist to work on dreams when the therapeutic work seems blocked: it is the patients themselves who bring dreams or the same patients to the therapist to have dreamed of having dreamed of something particularly interesting, dreams characterized by intense emotional experiences, considered significant for the moment of life they are experiencing. In fact, the dream can be a way to allow the patient to approach gradually to Critical content Maintaining a certain degree of distance and protection, in the event that it perceives as too difficult and painful touch those contents immediately: that is, we approach the feared content in a gradual way.
Also theuse of dreams It can help patients learn the use of the imagination, it can facilitate theinsight Of the patient, it can provide the therapist with important clinical information, and finally it can provide a measure of therapeutic change, that is, the change in dream content can be indicative of a change in the therapeutic path in terms of both progress and difficulties and these changes can be related to both the life events of the patient and to the therapeutic relationship with dreams.
So the Cognitive behavioral model He puts the emphasis on the here and time of the dreamer situation and on the processes of processing the information below at the time of dreaming. Dream work aims to change the structure and content of the dream to encourage behavioral change and the disappearance of symptoms. The therapist suggests and encourages the patient to collect the dream material and the theme of the dream can be linked to tasks to be carried out at home, outside the psychotherapeutic session.
