Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung seemed to have shared a belief that people frequently distressed by nightmares could be re-experiencing some stressful event from the past.[14] Both perspectives on dreams suggest that therapy can provide relief from the dilemma of the nightmarish experience.
Halliday (1987) grouped treatment techniques into four classes. Direct nightmare interventions that combine compatible techniques from one or more of these classes may enhance overall treatment effectiveness:[15]
- Analytic and cathartic techniques
- Storyline alteration procedures
- Face-and-conquer approaches
- Desensitization and related behavioral techniques