Mental health professionals’ perception of chronic nightmares in clients

Abstract

This research aims to gain an understanding of clients who experienced chronic nightmares, through a professionals’ perspective, to understand the professionals’ opinions on the causes of chronic nightmares, as well as to understand the therapeutic methods used to treat them. The aims address the research questions “What is the mental health professionals' perspective of chronic nightmares?” and “What are the therapeutic methods used to treat chronic nightmares?” This research provides an opportunity to conduct further research on a topic that is often dismissed and overlooked, both at a global level and in the Maltese context. Through a qualitative methodology, five mental health professionals were selected to participate in semi-structured interviews, from which data was collected using Thematic Analysis. The themes identified were “Defining Chronic Nightmares‟, “Causes of Chronic Nightmares‟ and “Therapeutic Techniques‟. The results highlight that according to the participants, chronic nightmares are frequent dreams with disturbing content, often with recurring themes. Some of the causes mentioned were trauma, anxiety and side-effects in medication. In the professionals’ perceptions, treatments included enactment, imagery rehearsal therapy and psychoeducation. As a general conclusion, chronic nightmares are unconscious manifestations of unprocessed and repressed struggles, experiences, thoughts and emotions that result from many psychological causes, such as trauma and anxiety. Gaining a better understanding of chronic nightmares would prove very beneficial in raising awareness among the general public.