Dreams, Trauma
and the Therapeutic Window: Incorporating Updated Therapeutic
Guidelines
Carol D. Warner, MA, MSW,
is in private practice in Virginia. She has worked with dreams for
almost 30 years. Her book, Return to the Self: Psychological
and Spiritual Aspects of the Journey, deals extensively with
dreams, trauma work and spirituality in the clinical setting.
Abstract
This is an intermediate to
advanced level workshop, designed for clinicians who work with
trauma and dreams in a clinical setting. In the wake of the
recovered memory controversy, guidelines for safe and ethical
treatment of trauma have been developed and articulated. Christine
Courtois, PhD has been a leading teacher and developer of the
guidelines. The presenter has studied with Christine and her
co-worker, Joan Turkus. These guidelines for treatment are very
compatible with IASD’s dreamwork ethics statement, as developed by
this author in 1997, chairing the Ethics Committee. The goal of
this workshop is first to familiarize all participants with the
current general guidelines for treatment of trauma and
dissociation, and from there to move into guidelines for safe and
ethical dreamwork within the context of such treatment.
The
concept of the “therapeutic window”, introduced by John Briere in
the context of treating trauma and dissociation, will then be
introduced. Dreams will be shown to be an extremely reliable
measure of psychic material within the therapeutic window, that
which is challenging enough to help the client to grow but not so
challenging as to threaten overall stability.
The
experiential component of the workshop will include participant
sharing of dreams from early, mid and late stages of treatment.
The dreams will be looked at from several perspectives. The goal
will not be to “analyze” these dreams but rather to put them into
the larger perspective of treatment goals, safety and stability
issues, and ideas for how the clinician might help the client to
work with them.
Clinicians only, please.
