Working with Dreams in the Therapeutic Setting

I began participating in therapeutic work with Dr. L. Because of an impasse in my relationship to my birth family. For fifty years, I had no ill feeling toward my mother, father, and older brother, but recent events had caused “the scales to fall from my eyes,” and it became clear to me that my birth family was intractably pervaded by dishonesty, manipulation, cruelty, abuse, and sexually deviant dominance. My previous denial of this had been so complete as to render the realization shocking. Yet, on reviewing my record of dreams over the prior twenty-five years, it was clear that my dreaming mind had been quite aware of the reality of the situation, and had frequently tried to communicate this to me. The language of dreams, complex and powerful, yet obscure to the waking mind, combined with my state of denial to obstruct the message. But as denial began to clear from my waking consciousness, the dreams became illuminated, bringing more clarity to my waking mind and to my dreams in a process that accelerated rapidly. It was in the early stage of this that I began my work with Dr. L., and I will here share some of our experiences that I believe illustrate a healthy approach to dream work in the therapeutic setting. I arrived at Dr. L.’s office with a letter from my mother. I had been dialoging with her by mail and email about what I was beginning to understand about the illness that pervaded our family — in the hopes of working toward some kind of forgiveness or peace — yet had been met only with a towering construct of evasion, denial, gaslighting, and blame. Many years before this, when our relationship had been good (so I had thought), I had written her a letter in French, which we had both been studying at the time, in anticipation of a family trip to Paris. Now, as our relationship was shifting, I was demanding honesty and responsibility, but she wanted nothing more than to return to our previous state in which I was a willing participant in denial and the delusion of the “perfect family.” Now. In a gesture that was a hallmark of her unconsciously brilliant talent for manipulation, she had sent the letter back to me, with no reference to any other discussion, telling me that she was proud that she could understand the letter. The letter had been from fifteen years prior to this moment. I was beginning to understand enough of her process to know that the letter was meant to remind me of my prior tenderness, and simultaneously appeal to my ego, in the form of my pride in linguistic abilities. I brought the letter to the room, shared it and its context with Dr. L., and discussed it with him. Then it was dream time. My brother and I are in a wooden fortress. The fortress comes under siege by an invading army of French riflemen. My father is concerned he will lose the war, and tells my brother and I to wait in the tower, and lock ourselves in, to be safe. But the tower is wooden, and I am certain the invading soldiers will set fire to it. Indeed, this is just what happens, after the defending army is quickly overwhelmed, my father killed. As we try to make a desperate, seemingly hopeless escape, the fortress is swarmed by another invading army of Russians. The Russians are clearly the more powerful army, but their intentions toward me are unclear. My brother has been left behind. I decide the best move is to throw in with the Russians, since my fate with them would be unknown, but my fate with the French would be certain death. The ground is covered with snow, the victorious Russians are vacating the field on sleds. I cling to one of the Russian sleds. Some French soldiers see my escape, and rush after me. I hack at their arms with a bayonet, and bash their heads with the rifle butt in a gruesome and desperate exchange of violence. I manage to free myself from the pursuers, and the dream ends with me careening off to an uncertain future with the Russian army, still shaken, but cautiously optimistic. After a pause, Dr. L. Asks, “So, what do you think?” “I’m quite at a loss.” Dr. L. gives me some time. then he says, “The French army is your mother.” I have trouble with this. “Why is she French?” He simply points at the letter. “Of course!” I respond, thinking now how obvious that was. Dr. L. waits again, but I still have no more to offer. “The Russian army is your father,” he says. But unlike his previous observation, which brought me an immediate sense of recognition, the father image does not resonate for me. “But my father appears in the dream as himself. He impotently tries to make me safe, putting me in a wooden tower that he thinks is safe, although it is obviously not so, and then is killed.” “Your dream can manifest a concept through multiple, even contradictory symbols. Is your father’s ancestry Russian?” “No,” I say, but his suggestion sparks the necessary understanding. “But my wife’s is.” Dr. L. Pronounces unhesitatingly. “The Russians are your wife.” I immediately know this is true, but I still don’t understand the message. “And the violence?” “You are cutting off their hands, which are reaching to catch you.” “Yes.” “You are cutting off the grasping ties of your mother, and casting your lot with your wife.” I feel the truth of this in my gut. I understand all of the dream now. It also aligns with prior dream series. My mother is often portrayed in my dreams as an overwhelmingly powerful aggressor, overcoming my father and brother, who submit. This is in fact a significant aspect of the dynamics of my birth family, as the others accommodate my mother’s narcissistic, even sociopathic, dominations and manipulations, while I am the only one to resist. For this reason my dream depicts my father as trying to protect me and my brother from her anger (represented as fire), while utterly lacking the knowledge and capacity to do so (hiding me in a wooden tower). This dream and the work around it were early in my process with Dr. L., and they illustrate some valuable aspects of healthy dream work. Dr.L. does not tell me the meaning of the dream without first asking me for my own thoughts. He does not “interpret” the dream, but holds space for me to reach my own relationship to it. Most importantly, he does not try to fit the dream to his own preconceived notions or theories. Only when I am at a loss does he offer his understanding. I emphasize that this understanding is offered, not given. His first offering resonates, and I accept it immediately. His second offering, of the Russian army as my father, does not resonate, and I resist it. Dr. L. pursues the lead a little farther, asking about my father’s heritage. This turns out to be a false trail, but it leads me to the idea of heritage that allows me to connect the Russian army to my wife. Crucially, as soon as we uncover this more resonant meaning, Dr. L. immediately drops the father connection, rather than attaching to his own pet theory and labeling my dissonance with the interpretation as resistant. We both know, simultaneously, the new understanding is correct because I feel it in my whole body, and he can see that somatic response. No dream worker can avoid their own projections, but by careful attention to resonance and dissonance, projections can be recognized and discarded. But it is also of note that, had Dr.L. not pursued his lead a little, in the absence of any other indications, we would not have arrived at the correct understanding. Right understanding arises out of a delicate interplay between projection and intuition. In this interaction, as in many things, a useful model can be found in the theory of Authentic Movement as articulated by Janet Adler in several of her works. In particular, in “Who is the Witness,” she describes a process of interaction among two or more conscious beings. Her model originates in somatic work, but I have found it to be applicable to numerous situations of intentional conscious interaction. Adler describes a relationship among the mover, the witness, and the field in which the interaction takes place, which she calls the container. This work is much worth reading at length. In the therapeutic setting, two or more conscious beings interact. The language we use to describe this interaction both flows from and informs our conception of the interaction. The therapist is distinguished as a professional whose help has been sought, and that label is an adequate definition of the therapist’s role. For the role of the other conscious being, the one who has sought help, I find the word “patient” to connote an unfortunate dependency and designation as “ill,” and the word “client” to connote a business arrangement that is equally inappropriate. I choose to refer to the two participants in the process as the therapist and the participant. The word participant offers a sense of agency and willing engagement on the part of the one who seeks help, and also frames the process as an an open-ended inquiry. In Adler’s language, then, the therapist plays the role of the witness, the participant plays the role of the mover. It is an important aspect of Authentic Movement that these roles are not fixed, although they take time to evolve. This is an aspect of dynamic interaction of consciousness that traditional psychotherapy would do well to consider. The container in Adler’s system is the complex field of relationship within which the interaction unfolds. Dance studios, therapy rooms, classrooms, and other physical settings serve as concrete metaphors of the container, but they are not the container. These physical structures can, however, serve to establish a sacred space for conscious interaction. Sacred activity in any society is often contained within a sacred space that may be demarcated by a consecrated building, a sacred gateway or arch, or a boundary of sacred plants. Within the sacred space, there are usually specifically prescribed rules of conduct that differ from the rules of conduct outside the space. Although the spiritual activity that takes place within the sacred space is bounded by the space and contained within it, the spiritual activity is not the space nor the rules of conduct. Yet, more than mere metaphors, the barriers are a physical manifestation of the sacred activity, and the rules of conduct are an enactment of it. So it is with Authentic Movement, or Authentic Psychotherapy, or Authentic Education, or any Authentic Practice, that is, a practice that uses conscious awareness of the witness-mover-container triad of Authentic Movement as articulated by Adler. Part of the role of the witness is to strive to be conscious enough of the actions of the mover to bear witness to the movement. The witness cannot know what arises in the consciousness of the mover during movement. But the witness can strive to be aware of what arises in herself as she witnesses the movement, and bear that witness to the mover when they meet subsequently in dialogue. In dialogue, what arises in the witness and what arises in the mover may meet and exchange within the field of the container. This is why Dr. L.’s approach to my dream was successful. At first, I was not able to say what had arisen for me in the dreams, I could only relate the dream itself. When Dr. L. bore his witness to the dream, he presented what arose for him: The French army is your mother. From the perspective of the witness, this was an easy conclusion to draw, though, as the mover, being inside the movement, I had been unable to see it. But once spoken, I felt a somatic and emotional resonance that revealed that his witness, what had arisen for him, was resonant with what had arisen for me. Dr. L.’s second testament was that the Russian army was my father. As with the first instance, this was not what had arisen for me, but what had arisen for him. When he bore this witness, there was not resonance for me, there was dissonance. What had arisen for me was not what had arisen for him. Yet I still did not know what had arisen for me, so the witness continued bearing his witness. Finally, an aspect of his witness, an aspect of what had arisen for him from the dream, did resonate, and resonated powerfully, with what had arisen for me. Even though the witness can only bear witness to what arises in himself, this arising can nevertheless spark a resonance with what arises for the mover — either directly, in the first case, or indirectly, in the second. This resonance in the mover is what brings understanding. Mutual resonance brings mutual understanding. Approaching dream understanding with witness consciousness, with careful attention to resonance and dissonance, and without attachment to projections, pet theories, or even grand theories, can lead to illumination in the participant-mover that may not have been possible without the conscious-enough presence of the therapist-witness.