Posttraumatic Nightmares Of Traumatized Refugees: A Psychological Analysis

In class we discussed psychological disorders and different therapies that may be used to treat them. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is a serious condition that we covered in this unit; it occurs in individuals that have witnessed or been apart of a traumatic event. In the article Posttraumatic Nightmares of Traumatized Refugees: Dream Work Integrating Cultural Values, Carla Shubert and Raija-Leena Punamaki explore the application of dream work in psychotherapy.The article includes a study of an African and Middle Eastern woman. Both of the women have PTSD and go through a series of recorded therapy sessions. The symptoms of the women included nightmares, anxiety and pains in the body. During these sessions the therapist's objective was to reduce …show more content…
Traditional African cultures believe dreams are a way to connect with the spirit world; they saw them as a way to heal trauma victims as well. Traditional healers are important in this culture, because they give people rituals to perform in order to ease their suffering. Healers would interpret the messages in the dreams then tell them victims how to make the stress go away. On the other hand, traditional Middle Eastern cultures believed that dreams serve as warnings for the future. According to the article, most of the women in this culture depend heavily upon dreams to make decisions. These cultural views may add to the stress of PTSD if they are given the proper attention in therapy. In the study the therapist makes sure to respect these views in the …show more content…
Her PTSD symptoms were similar to those of the first case with the exception of her having a fear high places. Shirin's interpretation of her dreams added to her stress of PTSD. Therapy was very difficult for her to go through, and it took awhile for her to start attending the scheduled sessions. Shirin was resistant to talking about her dreams at first ,because she felt that the meaning was clear. She often had dreams about her death, which in her culture meant she would die soon. The therapist showed Shirin that no evidence of a possible death was present in her life. A useful coping technique she used was writing the traumatic events down on paper. Shirin's attitude began to show much improvement after putting her experiences on paper. Her desire to fight instead of give in to her PTSD grew. This desire was shown by the content of one of her dreams, where she dreamt of defending her children from a beast. The dream was a positive sign that she had improved. Shirin's dreams and thoughts of her death eventually ceased before the end of