Awakening the Dreamer: A Book Review

A classic text on psychoanalytic therapy, and the working through and healing of trauma.  This foundational book from Phillip Bromberg, grounds his theory in interpersonal and relationalist theory, and how to work with trauma as a therapist in either of these modalities or both– depending on your view.  This work focuses on trauma and dissociation and how they show up in psychotherapy, and therapists can begin to understand the dynamics at play and how to work with dissociation and dissociative disorders from a relational psychoanalytic perspective.  

Bromberg lays out the importance of tapping into the multiple self-states, which is a hallmark of true self-reflectiveness– the capacity to stand in one self while being many.  In trauma work, these different self states have become fragmented and may not even know of the existence of one another in severe cases of disassociation.  Acknowledgement and mutual recognition of both these self states and how their function for protection are necessary in moving towards healing and greater integration.  This is done through a gradual process of negotiations and collisions that happen between the patient and therapist through enactments and conflict within the therapeutic relationship.  

Through genuine encounters of an I and a Thou, the patient can mourn their losses, and be touched by the shared pain with another.  This is a complex process that requires us as therapists to sit with the Here and Now and seek to understand what is going on, and why the patient is hurt, scared, or scared.  Growth of this nature occurs in an environment that is safe, but not too safe.  And this growth is neither linear, nor easy.  

If you are looking to understand more about how to work from a relational and interpersonal perspective, this is a wonderful source. Many of these concepts hold true for anyone practicing therapy, or working with trauma or disassociation.  Happy reading!