1st Edition
A Clinician’s Guide to Dream Therapy Implementing Simple and Effective Dreamwork
A Clinician’s Guide to Dream Therapy demystifies the process of working with dreams by providing both a grounding in the current science of dreaming as well as a simple, practical approach to clinical dream work.
In addition to a survey of the current science and neuroscience of dreaming, this book includes clinical examples of specific techniques with detailed transcripts and follow-up commentary. Chapters cover how to work with PTSD nightmares and how to use experiential dreamwork techniques drawn from current neuroscience to engender lasting change. Readers will be able to discuss their clients’ dream material with confidence, armed with an approach that helps them collaboratively tap into the inherent power for change found in every dream.
Backed by research, common factors analysis and neuroscience, the approaches described in this book provide a clear map for clinicians and others interested in unlocking the healing power inherent in dreams.
Introduction Chapter 1. Fast-track to deep waters: Why work with dreams? Chapter 2. Bringing it home: Inviting dreamwork into your practice, and your life Chapter 3. Common Factors: Toward universal approach to working with dreams Chapter 4. Mapping the route: The science of dreaming Chapter 5. Understanding the terrain: The dream is born in metaphor Chapter 6. From ordinary to sublime: Kinds of dreams Chapter 7. Navigating the dream divide: Woman in the mirror dream Chapter 8. The central quest: Finding the life force inherent in all dreams Chapter 9. Avenues of exploration: Visual art and technology Chapter 10. The inner journey: Dreams and the body Chapter 11. Perfect storms: Working with nightmares and bad dreams Chapter 12. Fellow travellers: Working with dreams in groups Chapter 13. How dreams enlarge us: Big dreams Chapter 14. Transformation: Applying neuroscience to dreamwork
Biography
Leslie Ellis is an author, teacher and psychotherapist with a lifelong interest in dreams. She is a leading expert in the use of somatic approaches in psychotherapy and she specializes in teaching focusing for dreamwork, and treatment of complex trauma. For more information, go to www.drleslieellis.com.
"A Clinician’s Guide to Dream Therapy is the perfect resource for clinicians wishing to incorporate dreamwork into their psychotherapy practice. Leslie Ellis offers a scholarly yet entertaining summary of the major contemporary approaches to dreams and outlines the key effective elements across these approaches. She illustrates all this with engrossing clinical anecdotes that give readers a solid idea of how to begin this work."
Deirdre Barrett, author, The Committee of Sleep; faculty, Harvard University
"Leslie Ellis is passionate about dream work. In this inspiring book, she takes us on her journey to find contemporary perspectives from research, neuroscience and a range of clinical perspectives. She vividly describes experiential, creative approaches for clinical practice."
Serge Prengel, editor, SomaticPerspectives.com
"Leslie Ellis is adept at bridging the divide between the science of dreams and the practical techniques of working with dreams. In her recounting of her own dreams she acts as a wonderful exemplar demystifying the process from the therapist-as-client perspective. The discussion of nightmares is particularly beneficial. Understanding how to respond to someone dealing with that special nocturnal trauma is a necessary task. There are challenges and opportunities which can produce a pivotal moment in the course of a therapy."
David Jenkins, author of Dream Replay: How to transform your dream life
