ABSTRACT
In many ways, the points that we have made above in relation to working with metaphors and symbols will also apply to dreams since a dream is a form of `story'. We would in the ®rst instance recommend adopting a stance of curiosity and a phenomenological attitude based on awareness in the present. The recounting of a dream is also a relational activity since the dream is being recounted to another person, in this case the therapist, and this fact may in itself be signi®cant and re¯ect aspects of the therapeutic work that have been unfolding in recent sessions. For example, if the client arrives with a dream about someone who was very angry with her, and her feeling in the dream was that she had done something wrong, then the therapist might make a link in their mind between the reported dream and some imagined sense that the therapist might be angry with the client. It could be that this association might link with the client having been angry with the therapist and consequently expecting some form of retaliation, something that might link with experiences in childhood. The emergence of the issue in the dream creates space for an exploration that can gradually be brought into present time and into the actual relationship between therapist and client. However, we would caution against the use of immediate interpretation but would instead suggest engaging in a phenomenological exploration of what the client might make of this dream. It is useful for the therapist to listen with `a third ear' in order to pick up any resonances or associations. The use of their own emotional and body-based responses to the dream as it is recounted may also provide relevant information.
