Strukturale Traumanalyse

Dreams have been used in psychotherapy since the early days of psychoanalysis and the effectiveness of therapeutic work with dreams is now well documented; however, there is still no empirically based model for contemporary therapeutic dream work that integrates the findings of empirical and clinical dream research. The structural dream analysis (STA) developed for this purpose is summarized with the research methodology and the results to date. The central assumption is that the agency of the dream ego (the figure in the dream that the dreamer experiences as I) to cope with and solve problems in the dream, as opposed to feeling threatened, being anxious and passive and having no solution, can be equated with ego strength in the psychodynamic sense. A further assumption is that the improvement in the course of therapy is reflected in an increase in dream ego agency. A typology of six dream patterns has been developed which can be used to categorize over 90% of dreams in the clinical practice. The dream patterns are related to the specific problems of the patient, the themes of psychotherapy and the progress in therapy in terms of improvement. The model has been confirmed in a number of empirical studies. It can be used to derive strategies for the clinical practice of therapeutic dream work.