The Importance of Working With Dreams in Therapy Sessions
Dreams are like picture metaphors for our most salient emotions, highlighting what matters most to us. Dreamwork can both accelerate and deepen the psychotherapeutic process towards the integration of self.
The origin of the word “psychotherapy” comes from the Greek word “psyche”, which means soul. When we are doing psychotherapeutic work, we are tending directly to matters of the soul; understanding mysteries of the human psyche, how we make sense of the world, how we feel, and how we are shaped by experience.
Famed psychotherapist Carl Jung said that "the dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul.” Working with dreams in a therapeutic context is like taking a secret side door into the deepest parts of the human soul; parts that are not always necessarily available through regular cognitive processes.
Dreamwork is particularly helpful to those who have experienced trauma, who struggle with PTSD, or have recurrent nightmares. It might feel scary to talk about the frightening or confusing images we see in our dreams, but the simple act of talking about them and working through the messages they are sharing can help to dramatically decrease traumatic triggers, nightmare frequency, while fostering healing and integration.
Why we dream
Even though some dreams may be frightening or upsetting, all dreams are here to help us along in our healing process. Dreams are like picture metaphors for our most salient emotions, highlighting what matters most to us. Dreamwork can both accelerate and deepen the psychotherapeutic process towards the integration of self.
Dreams are not just arbitrary images shown to us while we sleep. They are living, breathing, representations of our deepest emotions and experiences. While we sleep, dreams help us with:
Emotional regulation
The consolidation of memories
Meaning-making
The abatement of loneliness
Spiritual connection and exploration
Working with dreams presents a powerful therapeutic opportunity that is often overlooked. When we know how to work with dreams and the symbols, metaphors, archetypes, and messages they share with us, we are able to move through traumatic experiences in a way that is safe, accessible, and effective.
Why we dismiss our dreams
In our waking lives, we are largely guided by the top part of the human psyche, known as the ego. The ego gets a bad rap as something entirely selfish or overly narcissistic, but the ego is a necessary part of every human psyche that regulates our awareness of who we are in the world.
This conscious part of the psyche does not like mystery or the unknown. When we dream, we dwell in the unconscious. And when we wake and our conscious mind begins to come back online, it begins to dismiss or filter out things that don’t make sense — like dreams filled with confusing metaphors, images, or people from our past.
Doing dreamwork, and showing the unconscious or shadow parts of the psyche respect for the ways in which they are trying to help us heal, can be a transformative part of the healing process.
Working with dreams in a therapy session
During a psychotherapy or dreamwork session, it is helpful to explore dreams not as literal messages, but as an active, intuitive and highly expressive representation of our psyches. By examining dream elements as parts of self, we can embody and explore each one to better understand its inherent healing capacities.
When working with dreams, I lean on several evidence-based psychotherapeutic approaches including Jungian, narrative, relational, and somatic therapy.
Interested in learning more?
The Mental Health Benefits of Incorporating Tarot Into Therapy Sessions
What matters most is what the cards mean to you.
Psychotherapy is a process of understanding, meaning-making, and feeling. At times, our experiences can feel so overwhelming that it can become difficult to express them solely through words — and this is why I love to reach for the tarot deck.
Tarot is a powerful psychotherapeutic tool that activates the brain’s right hemisphere processes of the intuitive and somatic, rather than the logical or rational processes of the left hemisphere. This is particularly helpful for those who have experienced trauma, which affects our neurological ability to feel and make sense of experience. In working with tarot, deep layers of the unconscious are unveiled, offering a valuable pathway towards healing and development.
When used in creative applications, tarot can illuminate understanding of self through its universal imagery, archetypes, and metaphors.
Tarot and the unconscious mind
The unconscious refers to actions, feelings, experiences, and thoughts that one is not fully aware of, but are nevertheless hugely influential to their current experience. Tarot takes takes the words spoken during a therapy session, often laden with unconscious meaning, and paints a rich picture worthy of deeper exploration.
First, we travel through the minor arcana — these are the cards that portray the four suits of the tarot and offer insight into our day-to-day activities, feelings, and goings-on. Then, we travel through the 22 cards of the major arcana which give voice to life’s universal experiences like struggle, discovery, celebration, death, and rebirth.
Making your own meaning
While the traditional card meanings can help orient us to the guidance they offer, I often encourage clients to throw those meanings more or less out the window and focus on a connection with their intuition when we pull cards during sessions. We so often look to external cues to tell us what we are feeling or should do in any given situation, but by using tarot cards as therapeutic tool, we are empowered to explore what the cards are bringing up for us in the here and now. Some questions worth exploring include:
What feelings are these cards bringing up for me?
Do I see myself anywhere in these cards?
Do the people in these cards remind me of anyone?
What do these cards make me want to do?
Do these cards remind me of anything in my life — experiences, dreams, wishes?
Suddenly, a new layer of meaning is available for exploration.
Tarot x Talk Therapy
In a session, I will pull tarot cards at a moment of curiosity or deeper inquiry for both of us, or I may invite you to pull your own cards to create a spread, or in other creative applications. Then, we will collaboratively explore what comes available into consciousnesses. The cards that are pulled will have a unique meaning for you within the context of your experience. Any way you interpret them is completely valid and holds deep meaning.
Illuminative Tarot For Working With Trauma
If you’d like to learn more about the therapeutic benefits of tarot, you can take my easily digestible, self-paced course Illuminative Tarot For Working With Trauma. In this course, we will move beyond tarot spreads and use tarot in creative ways to visualize trauma narratives, organizing principles, feelings, and experiences as a supportive partner in the healing process.