Here’s how I helped David last week – Am I a pedophile becuase of a dream I had?
David, a 37-year-old electrical engineer had been working on his sense of entrapment in romantic relationships for some time in his indivdual therapy with me. Recently he brought a dream to a session and it turned out to be a powerful message to him about how and why he repeated the same entrapment scenarios with a succession of partners.
After waking up from a dream where he was attracted to a young girl, David thought he must be a pedophile. He could barely bring himself to talk about this dream because it made him feel so disgusted with himself.
In his regular life he enjoyed sex with many women and used it as a source of emotional intimacy in the moment, resenting any sense of having responsibilities in the relationship afterwards.
Having scared himself into thinking he’s the worst human being alive, he expected me to judge him as a monster and confirm his worst fears.
Here’s how I helped him:
I helped David shift from feeling ashamed of himself to creating a sense of safety and begin work on his relationship issues using the dream images and his feelings in the dream and subsequently.
Due to the history in our work together I was able to put the dream image into the context of his confusing relationship with his mother. She had no boundaries with him and sometimes used him for comfort and affection, and other times to be her shopper, caretaker, protector, and source of mutual dependence. His relationships with women in his adult life were similarly confused where he wanted the love through sex without the other responsibilities.
• I helped David to focus on the dream image as an illustration of his boundary confusions and a nudge to work on it in therapy so that he could eventually have a mature romantic relationship.
• I helped David view the dream image as a sign that he was now ready to address this sensitive area having had a series of unsuccessful relationships that women focusing mainly on sex.
- I helped David appreciate that the scary image of himself as a monstrous pedophile was the only thing that had gotten through to him in a big way regarding the need to address boundary issues in his romantic relationship. He had to be scared into it! Having acknowledged the problem for some time, he hadn’t been able to make distinctions between friendship, romance, sex, boss-worker etc. and apply them appropriately. The level of fear, disgust and shame had to be intense enough to make him take stock and not continue with the blurry boundaries and consequent entrapments. He felt it in the dream and recoiled as he tasted the inappropriateness of it. He felt it when he awoke and it stayed with him long enough to begin the work in his therapy.
• I helped David feel less shame and disgust so that he could come to terms with the lack of appropriate boundaries in his childhood.
• I helped David realize he could be more conscious of the women he got attracted to in the earliest stages, and not be bound to repeat the same confusing roles he played when he was a child.
• I helped David identify with the young girl in the dream who was trying to seduce him, as a depiction of his younger self who had tried to seduce his mother into thinking of him as special by being her ‘everything.’
• I helped David appreciate that his dream was a message about needing to sort out the confusions he grew up with, and figure out boundaries within relationships that could be mutually nurturing.
• I helped David value his inner healer – his dream world, who was facilitating the shift towards deeper and more rewarding romantic relationships.
• I helped David trust me and feel okay about himself by not judging him as he judged himself.
Here’s more information about how I work with dreams and enhance my client’s growth towards a more fulfilling life with their partners.
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The Third Magnet That Attracts You Towards The Wrong Life Partner
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