Four Reasons to Work with Dreams… and at the risk of being dramatic, they can even save lives!
By Dr. Leslie Ellis The following is an excerpt from the first chapter of my recent book which outlines 4 excellent reasons to work with dreams. This list is aimed at psychotherapists, but holds true for all dreamers! So, why work with dreams? They point to our most salient emotional concerns It may seem that
Gendlin’s Radical Impact on Psychotherapy: A summary of his top 3 papers
What matters is that the therapist is another human person who responds, and every therapist can be confident that he can always be that. (Gendlin, 1968) In honor of Eugene Gendlin’s lifetime achievement awards for contribution to psychotherapy theory (from APA, USABP and others), I have summarized his most important articles here. The radical
Strategies to tame the inner critic
In our lives, and in our clinical practice, we have all encountered the inner critic, and it can be a true impediment to connecting deeply with ourselves from the inside. Although everyone has a different version, the basic experience is the same: that of a repetitive and demeaning refrain that knows our particularly sensitive spots
Treating Complex Trauma: Straddling Two Worlds
A brief review of Trauma and the Soul: A psycho-spiritual approach to human development and its interruption by Donald Kalsched (Routledge, 2013) In his book Trauma and the Soul, Kalsched (2013) asks us to stand between two worlds – with our embodied sense of all the trauma that is present in ourselves and in the world,
Safety is the treatment, but a moving target — and love is the answer
The following is a brief review of some key concepts from Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges & Deb Dana, Eds., Norton, 2018). It is now well understood that until our trauma clients genuinely feel safe, no healing will take place. “Cues of safety are the treatment,” according to Dr. Stephen Porges. His Polyvagal
I was asked recently to recommend some books for new therapists. I offered my favorites, Irvin Yalom’s The Gift of Therapy, Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing, and Jacquelyn Small’s Becoming Naturally Therapeutic. They were not really what the intern was asking for, which was specific techniques, solutions and more certainty about what to say in sessions. I
Dream therapy works: Study shows diagnostic and transformative power of clinical work with dreams
In Angela’s dreams, there was always a similar theme. In them, she was climbing a mountain, an impossibly-steep slope that seemed to tower ever-higher so that no matter how hard she tried, she could never get to the top. Sometimes she met obstacles, weather, darkness, various elements that hindered her journey. Then one day, the
Whether and how to work with traumatic nightmares: An example from Auschwitz
Many therapists I am teaching to work with dreams have expressed hesitation in working directly with their clients’ most challenging nightmares. They express a concern that talking about these highly disturbing dreams will stir up their client’s fears, possibly reinforce them and generally make matters worse. In a recent blog post, I presented some evidence
Do we benefit from dreams whether we work them or not?
There are varying schools of thought about whether we can benefit from dreams even if we don’t work with them. At one end of the spectrum is the notion that dreams don’t do anything for us at all. At the other end is the idea that dreams are a piece of unfinished process that moves