The Phenomenological Use of Dreams in Psychotherapy

Abstract

This paper focuses on the application of phenomenological perspectives, principles and methods for the use of dreams in the psychotherapeutic situation. Upholding the appeal of the European philosopher and "founder" of phenomenology Edmund Husserl "to return to the things themselves," existentially oriented psychotherapists (e.g., Binswanger, 1963; Boss, 1958, 1963, 1977; Craig 1987a, 1987b, 1988; Stern, 1972) seek to illuminate the meaningfulness of dreams by inviting patients to explicate in detail the concrete episodes of their manifest dreamt existence. As the two partners of inquiry, the therapist and the patient, continue open‑mindedly to observe the specific events and elements of a particular manifest dream, the once obscure meaningful forms and structures of that dreamt existence gradually reveal themselves directly. Such an "unambitious reading" of what dreams themselves disclose does not require symbolic interpretations which rely more on the authority of the clinician's theory than on the authorship of the dreamer him or herself. Indeed, for phenomenologically oriented clinicians theoretical‑symbolic interpretations are in general highly suspect with reference to their existential validity for the patient.