How can you help someone who haves nightmares for four years off and on from their childhood and refuses to return to a psychologist?

Answer 1

Interesting question. It helps to understand why people dream. Most neurological types think that a lot of dreaming has to do with the brain working out what it determines to be problems. Sometimes this is at the level where language is a part of it (light REM sleep) but a lot of the interesting dreams happen at a deeper level, below langauge. This is why they're so hard to explain and so easy to forget. Childhood traumas are the stuff of nightmares, but not always in the way you'd expect. Depending on the age of the child during the causal events, these too may be below or prior to the level of linguistics, and so take on a symbolic significance. This means that, not only can the child not express the events, but the adult may not have language to express these events. Sometimes, traumas even retreat from consciousness. However, as time passes, it may occur that the adult becomes more able to cope with these traumas -- a normal part of the maturation process. This of course doesn't mean the traumas -- or their effects -- disappear. But it can mean that complete supression of the memory may be overcome. So -- sometimes -- recurrent dreams of childhood traumas in adulthood are the mind now addressing -- maybe "fixing" -- what it had to repress before. These nightmares may be a good thing, then. It's possible that a psychotherapist could help in this process, but certainly not if the patient doesn''t want that, for whatever reason. And it may even be that no help is necessary. It's clear that whoever we're talking about is someone close to you, who feels comfortable with you -- enough so that they're able to discuss what was apparently once something terrible in its own right. I would ask then the following: * Are the dreams becoming clearer or staying the same? * Are they progressing in a plot-like mode? * Are new personalities appearing in these dreams? * Are the images becoming more vivd or extreme? * Do the images invovle the subject's actions, or actions that were done to the subject, or both? * How do they feel after telling you about the dreams? Unless the person in question is in your legal custody, which I doubt from your description, there is little you can do beyond recommend. In that case, I would suggest you look at the entire pattern and ask if the person you're talking about has entered a healing process?

Answer 2

You can offer to listen to their experiences without judgment, provide emotional support during difficult times, and suggest resources such as books or online support groups that may help them cope with their nightmares. Encourage them to consider other forms of therapy, such as counseling or support groups, that might be more comfortable for them than returning to a psychologist.