Shutting Out the Dog: The Value of Nightmares in Recovery from Sexual Abuse

Abstract

In working with survivors of childhood sexual abuse, the author has been struck by the power of dreams and nightmares to convey comprehensive “feeling images” of the client's experience, which can not only express without words the emotional impact of early events but also indicate steps in the process of recovery. Such dreams and nightmares seem to be examples of the “world-image” dreams that Eric Berne (1972) referred to as encapsulating the client's script in a striking scene. Some theory from trauma studies and an example from the author's practice have been selected to illustrate the value of dreams in assisting the recovery of sexual autonomy. While this article refers mainly to women survivors of sexual abuse, the same principles apply to male survivors, some of whom have also shared striking dreams of healing during their therapy.

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