Dreams can reveal parts of a client’s inner world that are not always easy to reach through conversation alone. Through attachment theory, they may offer clues about attachment styles, relationships and what a client expects when they feel vulnerable or need someone.

In this episode of The Attach Together Podcast, Jane is joined by Gav McKee to explore attachment dreams in therapy.

Rather than treating dreams as puzzles to decode, Gav looks at the relationships within them: who is there when the client is frightened, what happens when they need help, and whether others feel available, distant or unsafe.

The conversation explores how anxious, avoidant and disorganised attachment may appear in dream themes, while avoiding fixed interpretations. Gav also shares practical ways therapists can work with dream material with curiosity, without imposing meaning.

You'll hear about:

• Retelling a dream in the present tense
• Listening for emotions and relational patterns
• Exploring significant figures through an IFS-informed lens
• Experimenting with different perspectives within a dream
• Working with unfinished or recurring dreams
• Noticing what happens when the therapist appears in the client's dream
• Recognising possible shifts towards earned secure attachment

Gav also considers how dreams may change during therapy. A client who once faced everything alone might begin asking for help. Someone may arrive when they're distressed. A frightening figure may lose some of its threat.

We can't treat those changes as proof of earned security, but they may give us another glimpse of an internal working model beginning to shift.

The episode closes with a clinical dilemma: what happens when a recurring dream is so frightening that talking about it overwhelms the client?

However rich the material may be, there are times when exploration needs to wait.

If a client is becoming dysregulated, our first task is to offer enough relational safety for them to remain present. Gav describes this as trying to read a map in the middle of a storm. The map may contain something useful, but first we need shelter.

Chapters

01:28 Why dreams matter in therapy
04:15 Why do we dream?
07:16 Dreams and attachment theory
09:23 Attachment styles in dreams
12:52 Working creatively with dreams
17:44 When a client dreams about their therapist
20:20 Dreams and earned secure attachment
23:31 Curiosity rather than interpretation
26:15 Recurring and frightening dreams
28:50 Regulation, safety and the secure base

Common questions

What can dreams reveal about attachment?
They may offer clues about what a person expects from relationships, particularly when they need comfort, protection or connection.

Should therapists interpret clients' dreams?
The approach explored here is less about finding the “correct” meaning and more about helping the client become curious about their own experience.

What if dream work overwhelms the client?
Slow down. Safety and regulation come before exploration.

A CPD Reflection Pack accompanies this episode, with reflective questions, supervision prompts and ideas for bringing dream work into attachment-informed practice.

If this conversation brings a colleague, supervisee or fellow trainee to mind, please share the episode with them.