Dream Work In Counseling:A Research From Pantheoretical View

Since ancient times, humans are full of strong interest in dream and dreaming, and trying to find their meaning and function. Various theories have been developed to explain the phenomenon of dreaming. Since Freud’s work, dreams have been paid a lot of attention in Counseling and treatment. Many therapists have proposed different dreams working models according to their own views of human nature and theories of psychotherapy, such as psychodynamic models (Freud’s model of dream work, Jung’s analytical psychology model, Adler’s dream work model), existential-phenomenological models, cognitive-experience models, cognitive-behavioral models and so on. And with the development of the times, different models have been developed and integration with each other. This study was designed to understand the views on dreams and dream work of multiple theoretical orientation consultants though interviews and to explore in the consulting practice the consultants how to use dreams to help understand the clients, and to discover effective strategies and methods of dream work.The researcher interviews 15 counsellors who have more than six years of consulting experience. Interview material is analyzed by "Consensual Qualitative Research" (CQR). The results indicate that:(1) Consultants shared their understanding of dreams mainly from four aspects: structure and formation mechanism of dreams, influence factors of the appearance of dreams in counseling, the meaning of dreams and the value of dream in counseling. The understanding of the dream work mainly includes 3 aspects:the purpose, the focus, the effects and the mechanism of the dream work.(2) The of dream work mainly contains 3 aspects:Basic principles, work ideas and interactive process of. According to the results, the researcher proposed two dimensional-three stages model of dream work. Dimension Ⅰ-"strategy" dimension (the internal processes of consultants), including the "evaluation" and "choice", " case analyzes using dreams ". Dimension Ⅱ-"method" dimension, including "exploration preparation", "exploration process" and "realistic migration".(3)In the consulting, consultants will combine of the dream content and the problems of the clients to help understand the clients. At the same time, consultants will pay attention to the way that clients present the dreams.