New Directions in Dream Interpretation

I edited this book over nearly a decade. I asked experienced therapists, to:
FIRST, describe the school of dream theory or method they practiced, and how their years of experience had developed and modified their work with patients or students.
SECOND, I asked them to describe their methods and tell us just what happened in a session of dream interpretation by audio recording the session and including a very slightly condensed transcript in their chapter.
THIRD, I asked them to compare their methods of working to that of the other authors’ chapters in this book.

Well, I returned most chapters many times to most authors asking them to get past the first part and give me parts two and three. It took over 10 years before I said, “OK.” At the time, many practitioners followed their heroes such ad Jung or Freud and little was written on actual methods of working, of who said what when, and some therapists were offended to think their highly symbolic, and “spiritual” work could be “reduced” to methods with practical applications in the dreamer’s life. Many therapists taught that good dreamwork could only flow from their hero’s and their own “Wisdom” after decades of learning at the feet of the wise ones. Furthermore, most therapists did not read the work of others of different persuasions. I chose authors whom I admired as people as well as more open, creative, and energetic and who had made important contributions to the field. Each chapter shows you a different POV on dreamwork. While Loma Flowers’s chapter uses the Dream Interview Method, focuses on the use it in her San Francisco psychiatric clinical practice.