Dream Therapy for PTSD: The Proven System for Ending Your Nightmares and Recovering from Trauma

158 Pages·2015·1.018 MB·English

by  Bruce M. Dow

Dream Therapy for PTSD
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Dream Therapy for PTSD
The Proven System for Ending
Your Nightmares and Recovering
from Trauma
Bruce Dow, MD
Copyright © 2015 by Bruce Dow
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other-
wise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing
from the publisher.
This book discusses treatments (including types of medication and mental health therapies), diagnos-
tic tests for various symptoms and mental health disorders, and organizations. The authors have
made every effort to present accurate and up-to-date information. However, the information in this
book is not intended to recommend or endorse particular treatments or organizations, or substitute
for the care or medical advice of a qualified health professional, or used to alter any medical therapy
without a medical doctor’s advice. Specific situations may require specific therapeutic approaches
not included in this book. For those reasons, we recommend that readers follow the advice of quali-
fied health care professionals directly involved in their care. Readers who suspect they may have
specific medical problems should consult a physician about any suggestions made in this book.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dow, Bruce (Psychiatrist)
Dream therapy for PTSD : the proven system for ending your nightmares and recovering from
trauma / Bruce Dow, MD.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4408-3740-1 (alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-4408-3741-8 (ebook) 1. Post-traumatic
stress disorder—Treatment. 2. Dreams—Therapeutic use. 3. Nightmares. I. Title.
RC552.P67D69 2015
616.85ʹ2106—dc23 2014041802
ISBN: 978-1-4408-3740-1
EISBN: 978-1-4408-3741-8
19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5
This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook.
Visit www.abc-clio.com for details.
Praeger
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC
ABC-CLIO, LLC
130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911
Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911
This book is printed on acid-free paper
Manufactured in the United States of America
To the Dream Group veterans who started me on this project
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
ONE: Rescript Your Dreams and Recover from PTSD 1
TWO: The Dream Team: Group Therapy for Combat Nightmares 13
THREE: Postal: Dream Revision for Homicidal Impulses 25
FOUR: Bubbles: Revising Combat Dreams about Drowning 33
FIVE: High Dive: Revising an Interrogation Dream 47
SIX: Retraumatization and Recovery: Vietnam and 9/11 57
SEVEN: Explosion: Dream Revision for Triggered Memories 75
EIGHT: Car Crash: Dream Revision for Adult and Child Trauma 83
NINE: Junkyard Dog: Revising Dreams That Involve Guilt 95
TEN: Harassment: Dream Solutions for Waking Problems 109
ELEVEN: Brain Mechanisms of PTSD and Recovery 129
Notes 135
References 137
Index 141
There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream
of things that never were, and ask why not?
Robert F. Kennedy
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my book coach, Lisa Tener, who helped me develop my voice;
to fellow writing students Anne Burnett, Martha Rhodes, and Norah Hall
for valuable feedback during writing sessions with Lisa; and to Julie Silver
and the Harvard Writers Conference for teaching me about medical non-
fiction writing and introducing me to Lisa. Thanks to Debbie Carvalko,
Bridget Austiguy-Preschel at ABC-CLIO, Praeger Press, and Nicholle
Lutz at BookComp, Inc., who helped me convert the manuscript into a
book. Thanks to my agent Bob DiForio.
Thanks to my patients for sharing their stories so that other people suf-
fering from PTSD might benefit from their experiences. Thanks to Doug
Bintliff for listening to my telling of the stories during mountain walks,
and to my brothers, Dave Dow and Bill Dow, for reading the manuscript
and giving me helpful comments.
Thanks to Rusty Shelton and his group for website development, Sara
Jane Lapp for videos, Stephen DeFronzo for portrait photography. Thanks
to Ken Duckworth, for his internet radio interview with me on “Meet the
Doctor”; and to Michele Rosenthal for having me on her internet radio
show, “Your Life After Trauma,” three times, for valuable on-air interac-
tions with PTSD survivors.
Thanks to Jim Maguire for discussions regarding extinction, memory,
and trauma; and to the South-Eastern Massachusetts Psychiatric Society
(SEMPS) for inviting me to present case histories from the book for dis-
cussions of treatment strategies.