Customer Reviews

Trauma and Dreams

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Deirdre Barrett has done a valuable service for all psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and mental health professionals who work to help the victims of trauma. Her book demonstrates vividly, and often movingly, how dreams and nightmares can play a key role in the treatment of people suffering the effects of various kinds of catastrophic experiences such as sexual abuse, natural disaster, wartime combat, and political torture. Moreover, the book suggests that studying the common themes and patterns in the nightmares of trauma victims can teach us new things about the general nature and functioning of dreams. As Barrett says in her introduction, "Even though much clinical data relating dreams and trauma have been gathered in recent years, this information has for the most part been reported only in presentations at professional meetings while little has been written on this topic. A tendency toward segregation is also evident, with half of the data presented to trauma societies and the other half to those for dreams. This book's purpose is to disseminate to dream analysts, trauma therapists, and other readers the work that exists at this interface." (p. 4) Trauma and Dreams makes good on its promise by collecting seventeen different articles written from widely divergent theoretical and clinical perspectives. Every one of the articles offers compelling case study material, thought provoking theoretical arguments, and practical suggestions about using drems to improve therapy and counseling for people who have suffered some kind of trauma. Among the book's many highlights are Kathleen Nador's comprehensive survey of children's traumatic dreams, Belicki and Cuddy's well-balanced evaluation of how sleep and dream patterns can help identify histories of sexual trauma, Wilmer's poignant Jungian analysis of the war dreams of Vietnam veterans, Aron's disturbing portrait fo the "collective nightmare" of Central American refugees, Zadra's careful review of the literature on recurrent dreams, and Barrett's own fascinating chapter on the dreams of people with multiple personality syndromes. Anyone who has an interest in the relations between dreams and severe psychological disturbance will find much to learn from this book. As with most edited anthologies, the wonderful diversity of voices in Trauma and Dreams also creates some difficulties. Many readers, while deeply appreciating the individual articles, may find it hard to integrate all the different perspectives presented here into some kind of overall understanding of the exact relationship of trauma and dreams. Most strikingly, what are we to make of the claim of Lavie and Kaminer, presented in their article on "Sleep, Dreaming, and Coping Style in Holocaust Survcivors," that for some trauma victims it is better to repress their dreams rather than remember and interpret them? On the surface at least, the Lavie and Kaminer theory about the value of dream repression seems to contradict the views of many of the book's other contributers, who argue that it's most therapeutically helpful for trauma victims to share and express their dreams and nightmares. I'm sure there are many good ways to resolve this contradiction; it just would have been interesting to hear the authors themselves, or the editor, address this and other broader questions raised by their various approaches to trauma and dreams. Trauma and Dreams is sure to become a standard reference book in the clinical use of dreams. As the book's contributors sadly demonstrate, we're living in a world where countless numbers of people are suffereing terribly from many, many different kinds of trauma. Barrett's collection gives us some excellent practical tools for the care and treatment of those people, and deepens our appreciation for the powerful role of dreams in healing and growth.

I'd already ordered this book before the Sept 11th disasters, but it's uncanny how much is relevant to what we're experiencing right now, and what we may have to come if there's a longterm war. It covers all kind of traumas: child abuse, rape, war, kipnapping, political torture, terrorism and natural disasters. It's got great insights into the similarities and the differences between these groups, their nightmares and other effects of the different traumas. It tells a lot about how traumas cause nightmares, but also about how you can use your dreams to conquer both nightmares and also waking symptoms of the trauma. Many of the stories are terribly sad, but there's a lot that's inspirational about people overcoming traumas.

Some of the chapters are written beautifully, they have lots of dream examples and good advice. Anyone who's suffered a trauma or who has nightmares would get a lot from reading the book. A few chapters do come across like a textbook full of facts and figures. Even in these, the information is important and they have a biography of anything else you'd want to read about psychological issues of more specific traumas--child abuse, rape, war, terrorism, etc. It's worth getting even if you skip the most reference-like chapters because it's mostly very, very good.

When this book came out more than 10 years ago, nothing else existed on the effects of psychological trauma on dreams. Now there are many books and magazine articles dealing with the topic, but they're mostly recycling material from Trauma and Dreams. When looking up something in it recently, I was reminded how thorough and well-written it is. T & D has the clearest description of how one can transform recurring nightmares into positive, mastery dreams with imagery rehearsal. The examples in this book--both of the original nightmares and the later healing dreams--are richer and better described than I've seen anywhere. As another reviewer mentioned, there are several chapters which are so dense with research findings and details of theraputic techniques that probably only psychologists want to read them, but most chapters are highly readable and it's still the best book for PTSD nighmare suffers themselves as well as clinicians treating them.

This book has a fair bit even about general nightmares and will be of interest to anyone who suffers from them or has a child or friend who does. However, the majority of it is about how trauma affects dreaming and how you can intervene--on your own or with a therapist to change post-traumatic nightmares and recover good sleep and a happy dream life. Some chapters are about domestic violence, some about accidents, others about war veterans, so it's applicable to all sorts of trauma. Some is most relevant if you are a therapist working with other people's dreams, but most of it is highly readable to the general public. Recommend Highly!

Although there is legitimate work on dreams and the dreaming process, this tired old spin on dream interpretation is the worst kind of pseudoscience.