Clinical Uses of Dreams in Psychoses: A Psychoanalytic Approach

The book provides solutions to clinical challenges faced when working with psychotic patients and their dreams. It addresses the difficulty patients experience in distinguishing between dreams, reality, and delusions, while tackling the problems some psychotic patients face with free association and the prevalence of disturbing nightmares. This groundbreaking work challenges traditional psychoanalytic practice by demonstrating how dreams can be effectively utilised in treating psychotic patients. The book provides comprehensive solutions to clinical challenges faced when working with psychotic patients and their dreams. It addresses the difficulty patients experience in distinguishing between dreams, reality, and delusions, while tackling the problems some psychotic patients face with free association and the prevalence of disturbing nightmares. The work establishes how dreams fundamentally contribute to treatment by putting ineffable experiences into discourse, enabling historisation, and replacing traditional free association with dream chaining. The methodology emphasises careful interrogation of dreams through focused questioning that connects dream content to the patient's life and subjective position, ultimately allowing psychotic patients to review and modify their relationship with the unconscious. This essential resource is designed for psychoanalysts, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, and mental health professionals working with psychotic patients who seek practical, evidence-based approaches to incorporating dream work into their therapeutic practice.