FOR THERAPISTS · NON-CLINICAL, ADJUNCT DREAMWORK

Your client had a dream. Now what?

Tuesday, 4:50 pm. Your client mentions a dream in the last ten minutes of session, and there's no time to work it. That gap is where I sit.

I work alongside therapy, never in place of it (IASD ethics, referral list and all). You keep the clinical work. I help your client stay with the dream between your sessions, and what they find there tends to walk right back into therapy with them.

"Maybe I should meet with you."

Six simple words. 23 letters. Yet, hearing those words come from a therapist with a PhD after explaining to her what I do was easily one of the highlights of my day.

You weren't taught this.

Survey data suggests fewer than 10 to 15 percent of graduate programs in psychology or counseling offer dedicated dreamwork training. The therapists who do use dreams mostly learned after graduating: continuing-education workshops, seminars, self-study. In practice, dreams come up with about 15 percent of clients and get less than 5 percent of in-session time.

It isn't your fault that the system never handed you the tools to help your clients with their dreams. I trained for it on purpose.

Want the surveys? Ask.

A COLLEAGUE'S DREAM

When I first received my certification as a Dreamwork Professional, I kept wondering how, if at all, the work could apply to corporate life. A colleague heard of my certification and asked me if they could share their dream with me to see what it meant.

"In my dream," they said, "I am in a warehouse that reminds me of my old job. I hear an alarm clock going off, and I am tearing open packages trying to find it. Every time I think I have found the correct package, I hear the clock in a different part of the warehouse."

I remained quiet for a while, reminding myself that I cannot possibly know what this dream means and that I should simply be curious.

"If this were my dream," I started, "I feel anxious because I cannot find the time and am pulled in so many different directions." I paused and then asked, "How is your relationship with time these days?" To my surprise, this individual opened up about how much they had been struggling with time management at work and in their personal life. It is something they hadn't wanted to share with anyone because they felt that if others knew about it, especially their peers at work, they wouldn't be viewed as reliable and might even be passed over for a promotion.

I wonder what might happen if more of us were willing to explore our dreams with one another, whether in a corporate or therapeutic setting.

How I work alongside you.

The boundaries are the point. I don't diagnose, treat, or manage mental health conditions. I'm not a licensed therapist. If your client is in acute distress, they come back to you, and my referral list exists for people who arrive without a therapist at all.

The full scope lives on one page: Ethics & Scope →

What your clients would actually be doing.

We start with a brief grounding exercise, and then someone shares a dream while the rest of us listen without interrupting. Once the dream has been told, we explore it together, and no one there tells your client what it means.

The client-facing page has the full shape: The Dream Circle →

THE CLINICIANS' CIRCLE

A Circle of your own.