Explore one image at a time: describe, re-experience, associate, find the trigger

Take each image through four questions: what it looks like, how it feels, what it reminds you of, and what in recent waking life set it off.

Pourquoi ça marche

In Hill's exploration stage the dreamer retells the dream in the present tense and then takes key images through four steps: describing the image in detail, re-experiencing the feelings it carried, associating to it, and finding the waking-life triggers that may have prompted it. Going slowly through the senses and feelings before any meaning is offered brings back detail the first retelling missed, and tying images to recent events grounds the work in the dreamer's actual life.

Comment faire

1. Retell the dream out loud or on paper in the present tense, as if it is happening now.
2. Choose one image. Describe it closely: shape, colour, size, sound, what it is doing.
3. Re-enter the moment in the dream and name the feeling it carried, and where you feel it now.
4. Note what the image reminds you of, then ask what happened in the last few days that might have set it off. Repeat for the next image.

Données probantes

The exploration stage is set out in Hill's 1996 book and her 2004 edited volume. Studies with trained therapists find it workable: in brief therapy with 25 distressed adults, sessions of dream interpretation using Hill's model matched event interpretation and unstructured sessions on depth, insight and working alliance. In a comparison of 14 clients with troubling dreams and a recent loss, those in dream-focused brief therapy rated the process higher, became involved more quickly and kept fewer secrets from their therapists than those in loss-focused therapy, though both groups improved. Reviews of dream work in therapy describe the research as generally positive and methodologically limited. (observational)

These studies were small, used trained therapists rather than self-guided work, and do not isolate the exploration stage from the rest of the model. The 14-client study's abstract does not report random assignment. Re-entering a dream's feeling can bring up more than expected, especially with a distressing dream that keeps returning: if you feel flooded, lose track of where you are, or the images will not settle, stop, ground yourself in the room, and work with the dream alongside a trained therapist instead.

Sources

• Hill, C. E. (1996). Working with Dreams in Psychotherapy. Guilford Press.
• Hill, C. E. (Ed.). (2004). Dream Work in Therapy: Facilitating Exploration, Insight, and Action. American Psychological Association.
• Diemer, R. A., Lobell, L. K., Vivino, B. L., & Hill, C. E. (1996). Comparison of dream interpretation, event interpretation, and unstructured sessions in brief therapy. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 43(1), 99-112.
• Hill, C. E., Zack, J. S., Wonnell, T. L., Hoffman, M. A., Rochlen, A. B., Goldberg, J. L., et al. (2000). Structured brief therapy with a focus on dreams or loss for clients with troubling dreams and recent loss. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 47(1), 90-101.
• Hill, C. E., & Knox, S. (2010). The use of dreams in modern psychotherapy. International Review of Neurobiology, 92, 291-317.
• Pesant, N., & Zadra, A. (2004). Working with dreams in therapy: What do we know and what should we do? Clinical Psychology Review, 24(5), 489-512.
• Eudell-Simmons, E. M., & Hilsenroth, M. J. (2005). A review of empirical research supporting four conceptual uses of dreams in psychotherapy. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 12(4), 255-269.

Erreur fréquente

Racing through all four steps for every image. Hill's model works with a few key images in depth; trying to cover everything leaves the feelings unvisited.