Description
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.
Fascinating stories of how people have used Dream Therapy to get rid of PTSD nightmares and even the PTSD itself. Dr. Bruce Dow has an amazing method and is a great storyteller, too.
LOVE this idea of dream therapy!
This is a sensitively observed book that offers practical solutions to a current national problem that doesn’t get enough attention. It’s common to hear the slogan “support our troops”, but less often to hear about real ways we can do this. This book offers real support for veterans and others with PTSD. This therapy needs to be widely available, and I hope the book, and its method, will get attention.
The book is obviously of immediate interest to those dealing with PTSD, but the stories it tells about people with PTSD are compelling. I was particularly struck by the experience of an African-American Vietnam veteran who, among other things, had been denied the right to attend the funeral of a white comrade buried in an all-white cemetery in the 1960s. That’s just one example–the stories this book tells about veterans deserve widespread attention.
So, I must say up front that I am biased, as Bruce Dow is my dad! However, I am also a clinical psychologist who works with PTSD (among other things) and a discerning reader and must also say that this is an excellent and very useful book. “Dream Therapy” is not only very helpful clinically, detailing a whole new way of working with PTSD patients that is relatively easy to apply, but it also brilliantly outlines an intriguing new theory that ties together dreams, nightmares, PTSD and memory. To put it briefly, if I understand it correctly, the theory goes that one of the main functions of normal dreaming is to consolidate memory, especially emotional memory. PTSD, in this theory, is in part a disorder of memory and a disorder of dreaming. The traumatic memories have gotten stuck causing all kinds of havoc, and one of the main mechanisms keeping those stuck memories in place are recurrent nightmares. Each time a nightmare occurs, the traumatic memory gets more and more consolidated, and the PTSD gets worse. So the idea of dream therapy is to intervene at the level of the nightmare, and through what is essentially a type of CBT for nightmares, gradually get the nightmares to loosen up and to shift, thus also loosening up and shifting the traumatic stuck memories which are at the core of PTSD. Brilliant! And, in my experience, if you stick with it, it really works. And furthermore, while this stuff can probably be done most easily with a therapist, it can also be done on a self-help sort of level by motivated readers. It’s strength based, and as my dad outlines, also really helps people activate their will and sense of self-efficacy, scripting the dreams they want to have (and live) rather than dreaming the dreams hoisted on them by their traumas. If you are at all interested in trauma, dreaming or memory, or therapy in general, definitely worth checking out!