Dreams and Prophecy: The Mantic Interpretation on Psychotherapy
ICSPConference Proceedings 2022 April 1, 2022 DOI: 10.52987/icsp.2022.002 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that mantic dream interpretation, historically used across civilizations, can be a useful tool in ethnopsychiatric psychotherapy to help patients reframe traumatic experiences. |
Abstract
Abstract The mantic and prophetic dream interpretation is an ancient practice that has been applied in different contexts and at different historical times. With Freud's psychoanalytic proposal to interpret patients' dreams, the meaning of dream content and experience becomes a central element of the psychotherapeutic process. Freud obviously had an enormous cultural knowledge of ancient texts and ancient practices. The incubation technique in Freud's psychotherapeutic proposal was considered an innovative psychological strategy for understanding the patient's thoughts and feelings, but little attention was paid to the mantic quality that had distinguished the incubation process and dream interpretation for many centuries and across several civilizations. In recent decades, the mantic meaning of dreams has been considered useful within the ethnopsychiatric approach to restore the patient's ability to develop a new perspective in relation to a traumatic situation. In this article I will try to explain the use of mantic dream interpretation during the psychotherapeutic process. KEYWORDS: mantic dreams; prophecy; psychotherapy; ethnopsychiatry; dream- interpretation; trauma