Culturally Responsive Dreamwork: Facilitating Culturally Competent Dream Discussions

Culturally responsive dreamwork (CRD) addresses a significant gap in counseling and psychotherapy by offering an innovative, culturally competent approach for therapeutic dream discussions. By adopting a culturally responsive stance, CRD guides dream discussions without imposing psychological beliefs, acknowledging that many clients view dreams as meaningful cultural, religious, and spiritual experiences. Within CRD is a framework of key areas of focus: sharing, appreciating, finding the significance, and editing. Recognition of these four areas allows therapists to adaptively facilitate dream discussions using their core helping skills and multicultural competence, enabling dreamwork congruent with clients' beliefs and therapists' clinical approaches. The article details the need for CRD and its use in therapy.