The use of dreams in psychotherapy with deaf patients

Dreams and, in one case, hallucinations were elicited during the course of brief reparative psychotherapy with a clinic population of largely lower-middle- and lower-socioeconomic-class deaf patients with varying diagnoses, and used in the treatment. Results show that (1) deaf patients can be trained to increase their capacity for self-observation and self-reporting; (2) cognitive skills and abstract abilities were sufficiently developed so that unconscious material could be interpreted meaningfully; (3) this technique facilitated insight into unconscious intrapsychic conflicts; (4) better integration of personality and greater autonomy and object constancy were achieved through clarification of the conflicts; (5) a spectrum of emotional disorders including depressive symptoms was found, akin to patients who are hearing.