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Volume 2
Journal of Psychiatry and Mental Health Research
Psychiatry Nursing & Psychiatry 2019
June 17-18, 2019
Psychiatry & Mental health Nursing
Psychiatry and Mental Health
June 17-18, 2019 | Rome, Italy
4
th
World Congress on
2
nd
Global Experts Meeting on
&
No more nightmares: How to use planned dream intervention to end nightmares
Beverly Ann Dexter
Licensed Clinical Psychologist, USA
P
lanned Dream Intervention (PDI) is a highly effective, rapidly learned skill that teaches the dreaming
brain how to sleep through nightmares. Developed by Dr. Beverly Dexter in 2001 and taught to thousands
of clients (including in an active combat zone), health care providers and educators around the world. PDI
is dramatically different from previous therapies that require multiple sessions, an established therapy
relationship, continued follow up if more disturbing events occur, and is much more acceptable to the large
percentage of nightmare sufferers who would never pursue traditional therapy or who might not have in-
person access to therapy. Briefly, the successful PDI is:
1
) an intuitive emotion-gut creation;
2
) may not
necessarily be the first thing the individual thinks of;
3
) the ‘emotional volume’ of the effective PDI matches
that of the dream at the point where the dreamer woke up;
4
) the successful PDI is not re-writing the dream—it
kick-starts the person back into the dream with a sense of mastery;
5
) if the dream is about a real life event, the
PDI that will work may not necessarily appear to be related to what the dreamer would like to have happen in
real life; and
6
) effective dream interventions can be created from physical sensations or emotions, even when
the individual does not remember actual dream content. PDI training creates a mastery experience allowing
the dreamer to sleep through any dream without waking or acting out dream content, now and in the future.
Biography
Beverly Ann Dexter, a US Navy Commander (Retired) with over 35 years of military experience, served on 4 shipboard tours, and tours
with US Marines and Special Forces stateside, and Joint Service with US Marines and US Army in Iraq. As a leader in the treatment
and prevention of trauma, she founded Military Special Interest Groups for the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and
the EMDR International Association. In continuing humanitarian work, she also has provided Planned Dream Intervention training at no
cost, to groups in England, Germany, India, Israel, Zimbabwe, Australia, Canada and across the US.
badexter@cox.netJ Psych and Mental Health Research, Volume 2