Both a manual on the various methods for working with dreams and an easily understandable description about dreamwork methods and PTSD nightmares for general readers, this book will benefit psychotherapists, counselors, academics, and students. Working with Dreams and PTSD Nightmares: 14 Approaches for Psychotherapists and Counselors is an essential tool for anyone seeking to learn how to work with dreams. It covers all major methods in use today, offering outlines of the processes with descriptive examples that make the material come alive for the reader. The clinical examples enable counselors and psychotherapists to be able to see the effectiveness of dreamwork processes, and the text clearly explains techniques so readers can use them in clinical and counseling sessions. PTSD nightmares are given special attention to serve counselors and therapists who assist PTSD patients in settings such as private practice, mental health centers, community centers, and hospitals. This book is a comprehensive textbook appropriate for courses on psychology and dreams. Readers who are interested in dreamwork methods but have not previously worked in the field will find the information accessible, concise, and clear.

"This book will be a valuable resource for those conducting research focused on trauma- related sleep disturbances and nightmares, and for clinicians working with clients with these problems." --Heidi S. Resnick, PhD, Medical University of South Carolina "Extremely thoughtful and comprehensive....Dr. Davis does a superb job of providing clear, evidence-based treatment with many helpful case examples included. It is a must read for any therapist who treats patients with PTSD." --Sherry A. Falsetti, PhD,University of Illinois College of Medicine Treating Post-Trauma Nightmares presents the only interdisciplinary treatment that brings together literature, theory, and techniques from sleep medicine and psychological perspectives: Exposure, Relaxation, and Rescripting Therapy (ERRT). This groundbreaking treatment specifically targets chronic nightmares experienced by trauma-exposed persons. An empirically based book, Treating Post-Trauma Nightmares discusses the nature and characteristics of trauma-related nightmares, and serves as a guide to clinicians treating patients with PTSD or other trauma- and sleep-related disorders. Davis explores and outlines the treatment process, step-by-step, for those interested in the utilization and evaluation of ERRT. Key Features: Delineates important assessment considerations, providing guidance in the assessment of traumatic events and differential diagnosis of sleep events Includes a section on treatment considerations, addressing potential difficulties therapists or clients may encounter, and provides suggestions for handling these situations Features a complete participant manual that summarizes all components of the treatments explained in the book

Finally, this volume concludes with a look at the potential "traumas of normal life," such as divorce, bereavement, and life-threatening illness, and the role of dreams in working through normal grief and loss

Nightmares, especially those caused by trauma, not only disrupt your sleep but can leave you exhausted and on edge, haunting your daylight hours. With in-depth information on the nature of nightmares, international speaker, author, and psychotherapist Linda Yael Schiller shows you how to turn anxiety-filled or heart-pounding dreams into resources for spiritual growth. Her four decades of experience in both dreamwork and trauma treatment provide the reader with guidelines for turning PTSDreams into PTSG: Post Trauma Spiritual Growth. Therapists, counselors, medical professionals, and healers of all stripes, as well as the general public, are often woefully unprepared to deal with their own or their clients' nightmares. Dreamwork and connecting the dots between dreams, nightmares, and a trauma history simply isn't taught in most professional graduate schools. We do ourselves and clients a disservice if we don't have the tools and methods to bring relief from this suffering. PTSDreams offers these tools, informed by Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) methods, to provide safe, non-triggering work and a Jungian active imagination approach that allows us to re-enter these dreams safely. This way, we can rework the dreams, resource the dreamer, and bring healing to both the nightmare and the root cause of the trauma. When unaddressed, these dark dreams can follow us around in other forms, sneaking in through the cracks and fissures of our consciousness until they are finally faced, comforted, and healed. As Jungian analyst Dr. Yorum Kaufman taught, an inability to find a place for these memories keeps us shackled to a constrained, Sisyphean world whereby our movement into the future is thwarted by these "forgotten" memories that keep pushing us back down the hill. While retrieving these memories is a psychological issue, learning to live with what we remember is a spiritual process. Who can benefit from addressing their nightmares? Victims of violence, refugees, veterans, childhood abuse survivors, victims of bullying and gender or racial violence, anyone with shattered or disrupted lives. Trauma can be personal, familial, ancestral, global, and environmental. Both current and historical trauma and stress can benefit from this healing work. Linda's technique is also being used internationally to help war trauma survivors. Armed with effective techniques and Linda's warm compassionate voice, you can learn to safely heal post-traumatic nightmares and their root causes. She teaches the Guided Active Imagination Approach (GAIA), a method she developed based on best-practice trauma treatment and Jungian active imagination principles. Through compelling case descriptions and thoughtful exercises, you will learn how to apply a multiplicity of integrated and embodied dreamwork techniques. Linda also provides somatic, narrative, and psycho-spiritual approaches. Combining neuroscience, healing, mysticism, and creativity, PTSDreams helps you transform nightmares into a new story: one of hope, healing, and life-affirming images.

In this series of clinical vignettes, a board-certified psychiatrist and life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association illustrates the effectiveness of dream therapy in treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be disabling and difficult to treat, often leading to depression, suicide, and homicide in extreme cases. In this clinical-based reference, acclaimed psychiatrist and neuroscience researcher, Bruce Dow, provides a step-by-step approach for implementing dream revision therapy—a treatment proven to eliminate nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, and other debilitating effects of PTSD. Drawing from work with patients in both military and civilian settings, Dow shows how to utilize imagery rehearsal exercises to help mitigate the effects of the illness. The vast majority of the book's 11 chapters focus on clinical case studies of patients who have suffered under the effects of the disease—for example, a hotel employee who witnesses a gory suicide; a female police officer whose career-ending crash in her patrol car brings back traumatic memories from childhood; and Vietnam combat veterans with recurrent posttraumatic nightmares. Each vignette offers details of the dream revision method along with clinical tips for ensuring its success. The final chapter features descriptions of brain mechanisms of PTSD and dream revision.

In this series of clinical vignettes, a board-certified psychiatrist and life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association illustrates the effectiveness of dream therapy in treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be disabling and difficult to treat, often leading to depression, suicide, and homicide in extreme cases. In this clinical-based reference, acclaimed psychiatrist and neuroscience researcher, Bruce Dow, provides a step-by-step approach for implementing dream revision therapy—a treatment proven to eliminate nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, and other debilitating effects of PTSD. Drawing from work with patients in both military and civilian settings, Dow shows how to utilize imagery rehearsal exercises to help mitigate the effects of the illness. The vast majority of the book's 11 chapters focus on clinical case studies of patients who have suffered under the effects of the disease—for example, a hotel employee who witnesses a gory suicide; a female police officer whose career-ending crash in her patrol car brings back traumatic memories from childhood; and Vietnam combat veterans with recurrent posttraumatic nightmares. Each vignette offers details of the dream revision method along with clinical tips for ensuring its success. The final chapter features descriptions of brain mechanisms of PTSD and dream revision.

Both a manual on the various methods for working with dreams and an easily understandable description about dreamwork methods and PTSD nightmares for general readers, this book will benefit psychotherapists, counselors, academics, and students. Working with Dreams and PTSD Nightmares: 14 Approaches for Psychotherapists and Counselors is an essential tool for anyone seeking to learn how to work with dreams. It covers all major methods in use today, offering outlines of the processes with descriptive examples that make the material come alive for the reader. The clinical examples enable counselors and psychotherapists to be able to see the effectiveness of dreamwork processes, and the text clearly explains techniques so readers can use them in clinical and counseling sessions. PTSD nightmares are given special attention to serve counselors and therapists who assist PTSD patients in settings such as private practice, mental health centers, community centers, and hospitals. This book is a comprehensive textbook appropriate for courses on psychology and dreams. Readers who are interested in dreamwork methods but have not previously worked in the field will find the information accessible, concise, and clear.