Working with Dreams and PTSD Nightmares: 14 Approaches for Psychotherapists and Counselors

"This book gathers the most experienced and talented group of dream explorers actively working today. Jacquie E. Lewis and Stanley Krippner have presented readers with an extremely useful and well-organized survey of various practical methods for interpreting dreams and gleaning their multiple dimensions of meaning. Anyone involved in therapy, counseling, or caregiving will find this book an outstanding resource." (Kelly Bulkeley, PhD, Author of Big Dreams: The Science of Dreaming and the Origins of Religion)

"This exciting new book on dreamwork is written both for the professional therapist and the individual who uses their dreams as a growth vehicle. The editors have drawn upon a wide range of specialists in the field offering various techniques, often based in theoretical assumptions, but also ones that are more empirically driven. The bottom line is that there are depth techniques for such important work herein which will satisfy most predilections." (Jayne Gackenbach, PhD, Editor, Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain; Past-president, International Association for the Study of Dreams)

"Stanley Krippner has made a stellar contribution over many decades to our understanding of dreaming, shamanism, and consciousness, marrying the best of science and scholarship to a humanistic concern for lived experience and respect for the traditions of indigenous dreaming peoples. Now, with co-editor Jacquie Lewis and their many distinguished contributors, he brings us an emergency medical kit for those who are called on to treat the serious malaise of dream deprivation in modern society―and its concomitant, the woeful inexperience of many in the caring and clinical professions when it comes to helping people to work with dreams. Working with Dreams and Nightmares brings together a wide spectrum of approaches, from Gestalt to cognitive-behavioral, from Freud and Jung to the Ullman method of dream appreciation and body-centered 'focusing.' The contributors are joined in a common concern to offer practical recourses for nightmare relief and to help PTSD sufferers to find their way through. Many of them provide transcripts of sessions with clients or dream-sharing groups that demonstrate, step by step, how they work their preferred techniques. There are valuable suggestions on how to help those who are new to dreamwork remember dreams, step beyond fears―and keep wanting to come back to work with more dreams." (Robert Moss, author of Conscious Dreaming, Active Dreaming, and The Secret History of Dreaming)

"Powerful! Great place for therapist, client, and interested reader alike to start, to sort out a diversity of dreamwork approaches―from Freudian, to Jungian, to cognitive-behavioral, transpersonal, focusing, and much more, even including cutting-edge approaches such as 'tapping' or transformation of PTSD nightmares. We humans literally spend years of our lives in the dream state, and this book can open new worlds and new ways of knowing, especially for persons in the West just discovering the wisdom of dreams. Each of 14 approaches includes authoritative information and examples, all from experts in the field. Not to be missed." (Ruth Richards, PhD, MD, Professor of Psychology, Saybrook University; Editor, Everyday Creativity and New Views of Human Nature)

Jacquie E. Lewis, PhD, is codirector of the Dream Studies Certificate Program at Saybrook University. She also teaches dream analysis at California Southern University.

Stanley Krippner, PhD, is professor of psychology at Saybrook University, Oakland, a fellow in four APA divisions, and past-president of two divisions (30 and 32).