Psychologist and client understandings of the use of dream material in psychotherapeutic settings: DATASET

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Most psychologists are likely to have at least some clients bring a dream into therapy. In the few studies looking at the use of dreams in therapy, therapists report that they do not feel confident or competent to adequately respond to their clients' introduction of dream material in therapy. The possible consequences of this include a negative impact on the therapeutic alliance and misinterpretation of the therapist's rejection of a dream narrative as a disinterest in the client's inner life. This research project seeks to identify psychologists' and psychology clients' understanding of their experiences of the use of dream material in therapy and their understanding of the role of dreams in contemporary psychological practice. While there have been some surveys about the use of dreams in therapy, relatively little is known about this topic, so a phenomenological, qualitative approach will be used. This research will be broken into two studies. The first study will use semi-structured interviews to interview psychologists and the second study will use semi-structured interviews to interview psychology clients. A hermeneutic phenomenological analysis of the interview transcripts will be completed with the aid of Dedoose software.