Dreams & Emotional Adaptation
A Clinical Notebook for Psychotherapists
by Robert Langs, M.D.
In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Robert Langs invites you into his world. With this invitation comes a new understanding of dreams and the insights they hold. The book offers an innovative method of attending to dreams effectively in psychotherapy, no matter what the therapist's professional orientation or to what extent dreamwork is used.
Dr. Langs has designed this book as a practical guide to how to work with both the surface and the depths of dreams. Multileveled and multidimensional, dreams are arguably among the most profound - and most complex - communications. This discussion goes a long way toward clarifying fundamental modes of listening to and formulating patients' material, as well as demonstrating ways to intervene, both of which will facilitate the therapeutic work of psychodynamic and cognitive psychotherapists alike.
A prolific contributor to the mental health literature, Dr. Langs' ongoing exploration of the human psyche has led to stunning revelations throughout the years. With Dreams and Emotional Adaptation, he has turned a corner in his own investigation into the meanings and impact of dreamwork -- proving himself once again to be an insightful, wholly enthusiastic student and a generous, altogether compelling teacher.
Contents
Part One: Dreams as Psychobiological Communications
Chapter One: An Adaptive Definition of Dreams
Chapter Two: Dreams and Nondyanmic Theories of the Mind
Chapter Three:Dreams and Psychodynamic Models of the Mind
Chapter Four:Dreams and an Adaptive Model of the Mind
Chapter Five:The Structure and Adaptive Functions of Dreams
Chapter Six: An Evolutionary History of Dreams
Part Two: Dreamwork
Chapter Seven:The Triggers for Dreams
Chapter Eight: The Manifest Contents of Dreams
Chapter Nine: The Encoded Contents of Dreams
Chapter Ten: Dream Psychotherapy
Some comments on the book...
James S. Grotstein, M.D.
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine
Training and Supervising Analyst, Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute
writes:
"Robert Langs continues his innovative legacy by extending his communicative approach to psychotherapy into a communicative dream therapy. ... Langs has not only found a skillful way of translating and understanding the latent content of dreams, he also has found a way of understanding the manifest content of dreams ... His prescribed protocol of treatment affords unusual self-authorization for patients to continue treatment on their own. This is a highly worthwhile book for all mental health professionals."
James O. Raney, M.D.
Clinical Faculty, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle
writes:
"This book, sweeping in its scope, demonstrates that dreams are components of the deep unknowable unconscious mind that is essential to human survival. Langs argues that communication is the uniquely human aspect of dreams. His argument incorporates classical Freudian psychoanalysis and modern information theory, neuroscience, anthropology, immunology, and neo-Darwinism. A communicated dream requires a listener. When the listener is a therapist, who can interpret and validate the deeply unconscious meanings, the vastly adaptive unconscious mind becomes more efficient. Freud's Interpretation of Dreams was the dream book of this century. If Langs is correct, the book may become the "dream book" of the next."
This book is published by Zeig and Tucker.
ISBN: 1-891944-05-3