Psychotherapy IMAGO

WELCOME TO THE CENTER FOR DEPTH – PSYCHOLOGICAL DREAM ANALYSIS IMAGO

We gathered a team of specialized professionals with highest education and exquisite skills to help you understand yourselves better through using dream analysis in psychotherapy, counselling and coaching.

One of the definitions says that dreams are psychological life of humans while organism is asleep (definition given by Ernst Aeppli in his book The dream and its Interpretation). Even Aristotle, the great Antique philosopher knew about it. While our body is in the sleeping state, our mind is active and is in the dreaming state. Today we know that the processes of the mind are continuous through the whole night. In that state, our mind produces fascinating imagery, which we often fail to explain, but only if we try to understand them literally. This is why all the ancient cultures gave their best to try to decipher this intriguing phenomenon, which is full of unusual images and colorful emotional states. This only proves that dream is the psychological event of great importance, as being confirmed every time a new neuropsychological research is published. Today we think of ancient attempts to understand dreams as naïve, though some of them show extraordinary progressivity. The most famous example is Artemidorus Daldianus, the first dream interpreter that we know of who related dreams with waking life situation of a dreamer, which made him rise above dream dictionaries, so often used in the ancient times, but unfortunately in our days, too.   

Content of the dream is always related to a dreamer and current life situation he or she is in. This is also true for the dreams in which magnificent, archetypal imagery emerges, even though they can be fully understood only through amplification found in fairy tales, myths, legends and religion. In depth psychology today (common name for all psychological orientations which deal with unconscious psychological processes and their integration in conscious part of the personality) it is well accepted as a definition that a dream is unconscious reaction to a conscious situation, which is always triggered by that conscious situation and the importance of the situation makes the dream impact more powerful on the dreamer. The importance of a dream as an unconscious reaction is its aim towards one-sidedness in conscious attitude with a goal to widen it, broaden it and change it. Through dream work, i.e. dream analysis a dreamer gets to know what, where, when and how to change to make his or her life directed towards fulfillment of personality’s highest potentials. 

First of all, dream analysis is a practical skill. It is founded in intentional and equal dialogue between the analyst and the dreamer, focused on the exploration of a dream content and establishing links with dreamer’s conscious attitude and his or her current life circumstances. By using elicited descriptions and associations, analyst translates unclear dream content into a language understandable for a dreamer, having always in mind to carefully dose that interpreted material and make it easy to be accepted by a dreamer so he or she could be encouraged to make a meaningful change. If the analyst doesn’t do it properly, dreamer may resist and refuse to materialize given instruction. The most important part of the dream analysis, and it is best done through interpreting dream series instead of a single dream, is encouragement and motivation of a dreamer to make a significant change which results in fuller psycho-physical functioning.

It is possible to analyze dreams in both individual and group sessions. The goal is always similar: to understand better our own good and bad attitudes, emotional reactions and behavioral patterns and to gain concrete guidelines for how and what to change in our relations towards ourselves, people and situations around us. What makes dream analysis different from other counselling and psycho-therapeutic methods is orientation of the method to allow the answer to come from within the dreamer – from his/her wiser part, to be more precise. It is in absolute accordance with the dreamer’s potentials. This minimizes the possibility for the analyst to influence the dreamer by his own inapplicable attitudes. The dream is considered interpreted once the dreamer gets useful information and when both analyst and dreamer see that it struck the very core of the issue. It should produce “a-ha” reaction and inspire further elaboration, understanding and accepting of analyzed material. The result will be seen in the change in functioning which makes dreamer’s life fuller, though not necessarily simpler at first, because all the new situations make new demands for adaptation. The final goal is somewhat distant, but achievable and enriching.

You may contact us using e-mail address:

centarimago@gmail.com

Our analysts are fluent in English and Ex-Yugoslav languages. You may book one on one session, either in person or via Skype.

Slobodan Nikolić

President and founder of THE CENTER FOR DEPTH – PSYCHOLOGICAL DREAM ANALYSIS IMAGO

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