Dream Analysis with Smart Therapy™
Smart Therapy’s approach in working with dreams in the context of improving mental health is based on a couple assumptions that fall into the psychodynamic and depth therapy realm:
- We have an unconscious aka subconscious, and “making conscious what is unconscious” can greatly help in relieving individuals of symptoms related to mental health conditions
- Dreams contain a lot of material from the unconscious that can give us insight into our feelings, needs, and experiences, as well as point to personal strengths and internal resources to turn to
Dream work involves the client bringing a dream to the session to explore, and the therapist and client together exploring the meaningful content in the dream.
Dream Therapy Research
Dream exploration with a therapist has been shown to help these areas of personal meaning:
- Increase your self-awareness
- Realize your ability to make self-initiated decisions
- Diminish feelings of helplessness regarding your current life situation
- Increasing Insight
Research has also suggested dream work can help with the following mental health experiences:
- Childhood Trauma
- Relational Issues
- Depression/Anxiety
- Dissociation
- Conflict and Defensiveness
- Family Issues
- Severe Trauma