Clinical Use of Dreams with Latency-age Children
Owen Lewis, J O'Brien
American Journal of Psychotherapy October 1, 1991 DOI: 10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.1991.45.4.527 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 7 |
| Key points | Argues that a dream arising in the course of a child's therapy must be conceptualized theoretically as a posttraumatic phenomenon, whether or not overt trauma has occurred, because of the heightened anxiety in such dreams and children's cognitive capacities for containing anxiety and generalizing symbolic meanings. Proposes a technique that translates the dream into tangible expression (drawing, play) and avoids interpretation. |
Abstract
Although various authors have discussed the technical modification required for dream interpretation with children, the basic conceptualization of the psychotherapeutic use of the dream with children has remained virtually identical to that with adult analysands. Examining various sources including formal studies on the nature of children's dreams, clinical case reports and series, and cognitive theories, the authors conclude that a dream arising in the course of a child's therapy must be conceptualized theoretically as a posttraumatic phenomenon. This holds whether or not there has been overt trauma to the child. The reasons for the conceptualization include both the heightened degree of anxiety contained in a dream reported in the course of psychotherapy as well as the specific cognitive abilities of children to contain anxiety and abstract and generalize symbolic meanings. A specific technique based on this conceptualization is then detailed that calls for translation of the dream into more tangible expression (drawing, play, etc.) and a noninterpretative approach. The authors also discuss the more general problem of the nature of insight in children.