Fear of death and nightmares: what to do?

As we can see, most nightmares (CS) are based on fears generated by the family situation, multiplying beyond the age norm and acquiring a life-threatening character. Therefore, the most effective way to eliminate the CS will be to reduce daytime fears in children, increase their self-confidence, improve relationships in the family, including correcting improper upbringing and neutralizing conflicts. In turn, it is impossible to eliminate fears in children without the interested participation of parents and their treatment of their own neurotic problems and conditions.

The earlier CSs are detected in children, the better their further mental state, since it helps in many ways to understand experiences that are insoluble by age.

In neurosology — the study of neurosis — there is the concept of internal conflict. Introduced it into scientific use 3. Freud, implying the contradictions between the sense of duty (Super-Ego) and sexual, sensual drives (Id-It). In dreams this is more than disguised, and the art of psychoanalysis lies in their solution. In everything related to the interpretation of dreams, 3. Freud did not have great achievements, in contrast to the more psychologically oriented C. Jung with his theory of the collective unconscious and archetypes.

As we have seen, the sexual underpinnings of CS in children are not presented in any expanded form. A fair share of not always adequate fantasy is needed in order to translate their content into the mainstream of psychoanalytic doctrines. Dreaming and fantasizing is not harmful, but it will no longer be science, but the degree of subjective shift of one or another researcher, passing off what is expected as what has been achieved, real, understood.

Now there is an interest in psychoanalysis among people who are not competent in it. However, despite its obvious merits, it will not be professional to consider CS in children in line with the concepts of those times, rather it will be a tribute to the unconscious traditions of the authors and their personal predilections. The driving forces in comprehending the CS will be modern knowledge of medical, social psychology and psychiatry.

We reasoned in this way because understanding the CS in children is a necessary, but very difficult task: it’s all the same to see oneself on one’s own initiative in a distorted mirror. Nevertheless, without knowing ourselves as we currently are, it is impossible to count on helping children. First, parents themselves need to change, and then educate children, correct their vision of the world, character and dreams.

An example would be the story of a 35-year-old woman who was unable to sleep without sleeping pills and constantly dreamed of a dog and a snake. She has been neurotic since childhood. She remembers how, as a very young girl, she was afraid of a snake, in the summer at the dacha she was frightened to death “to death” by the consequences of a bite, and as a girl she was, as you might guess, very impressionable.

At first, the snake acted as a threat to her life (poisoning — death), in adolescence, she rather symbolized the fear of alien influence. It is clear that all these fears are possible only with a developed instinct of self-preservation. What served as the basis for the continuation of childhood fears in a dream?

Not only imagination, impressionability, emotionality, but also high anxiety, and especially self-doubt: it seemed to her that she would not be able to fall asleep, that nothing would work out with normal sleep, she would have to take sleeping pills again, etc. Now is the time to ask two question: what kind of relationship does she have with her husband, and what happened in childhood?

With her husband, she experiences more negative than positive feelings, especially in connection with the sexual experience of the relationship, with which she is completely unsatisfied. This is what feeds her nocturnal fear of a snake that can penetrate deeply, creep in, penetrate. Another scary character is a dog, ready not so much to bite like a snake, but to suddenly attack, bark, frighten with its unexpected appearance.

Such an episode really took place in childhood, but in order to be preserved in dreams for such a long time, you need to have some kind of reinforcement, and even reinforcement. What was the conflict with her husband, relations with which, if not “dog-like”, were close to similar ones.

Yet, what was the link between the past, childhood and the present? This is the triad of fears before falling asleep — loneliness, darkness and closed space. Our patient was always afraid of loneliness, because with her artistic inclinations it was not difficult to imagine the appearance of monsters, the disappearance of always busy parents, or, in extreme cases, the end of the world. Darkness acted as a manifestation of fears, and the defenselessness inherent in it, again from childhood, emphasized non-resistance to evil.

Conditioned reflexes to the appearance of danger before going to bed due to the emerging phase transition states of brain activity are most firmly fixed. In view of this, it is not surprising that anxiety persists before going to bed, intensified by the anxious processing of domestic conflicts. As in childhood, daytime worries, problems, worries influenced the appearance of anxiety before sleep and, like a repeater, contributed to the revival of nighttime fears, represented by images of a snake and a dog.

How to expel them from sleep? It is possible to inspire a certain, protective plan, the nature of dreams (someone or something expels, destroys threatening night images) and that’s it? If in children such a suggestion is more or less effective and we use it after drawing fears or a game, then in adults, as a rule, it does not work.

Let us recall when the terrible dreams and fears in general began in the case under consideration. In childhood! And it is necessary to reduce their traumatic influence in the same developed ways as in the psychotherapy of children’s fears. Let us explain that we told this whole story with my mother because of night fears in her daughter, 11 years old.

The mother asked for help for herself, but when we found out that the daughter was also prone to nightmares, we offered to take a joint course of gaming therapy sessions, at the same time inviting the father, who loves not so much the mother as the daughter. And now behind four gaming activities, and with them most of the nightly fears. Such simple, but psychotherapeutically played games as tags, hide and seek helped. They are designed to eliminate the fears of loneliness, darkness and confined space that arise before falling asleep and during sleep.

For a more reliable prevention of the recurrence of the fear of sleep, an additional play session was required to reduce the fear of loneliness. In the first act, everyone played together with each other, after which they quietly disappeared, leaving the girl alone. Those who left in the next room repeated monotonously in chorus: “Ole (that was the name of the girl) is probably feeling bad now, she cannot occupy herself with anything. She wants to cry. Walks from corner to corner or sits in one place and looks at the ceiling. Maybe she’ll do something.»

What followed was a “silent scene”—silence, waiting to see what she would do. Left alone, the girl began to look around and noticed the laid out toys, sports equipment, giving her the opportunity to play, forget, better endure loneliness and the absence of adults. Hearing the noise from the game, the participants of the game returned one by one and emphasized the independence of the girl, her ability to occupy herself.

After that, all the adults again said in unison: “Olya is a good girl. Olya will get better and better. Olya has completely ceased to be afraid. If necessary, Olya herself will be able to help other children overcome their fears.” The suggestive value of such remarks is very great if they are based on the real achievements of children in overcoming fears.

After joint play sessions with their continuation at home, the mother began to fall asleep for the first time without sleeping pills, and the daughter no longer needed a consultation, for which she was signed up a month ago.

The question of all questions: should we play the fear of death, which is fundamental to many fears? We can assume that since it is not eliminated, then all previous work to eliminate fears will go down the drain. If at the beginning of our scientific journey we still dared to invite children to draw, among others, the fear of death of themselves and their parents, then later we became convinced that this should not be done not only for ethical reasons, but also because of obvious inexpediency.

Once other fears, caused by the fear of death, passed away, then sooner or later the fear of death itself lost its relevance, crumbled to smithereens, and therefore, it was not necessary to fight it, like with windmills. In addition, the fear of death in its premise is an age-related, transient concept. However, with a neurotic personality disorder, it begins to dominate in the mind, forming phobias, fears, premonitions and defeatist moods, and here active psychotherapy is needed not only for fears, but also for neurosis.

In this regard, one case from our practice comes to mind. The opera singer, famous in the 60s, lost consciousness several times on stage due to overload due to the flu, and gradually, but firmly, he developed a fear of death from cardiac arrest. An obsessive fear fettered the activity of the artist, he could no longer perform, he was repeatedly in hospitals. The disease, that is, neurosis, progressed, and for 10 years in a row he did not leave his house at all in the suburbs of Leningrad, where he once stayed for the summer, since any distance from relatives and home automatically included the fear of cardiac arrest.

During this time he visited many celebrities — from Juna to black and white magicians. No spells, suggestions, drugs and conspiracies helped. The breakthrough was made by the well-known doctor from Feodosia A. Dovzhenko, the author of the coding method for alcoholism. He then treated party comrades and at the same time decided to help our recluse.

With a voice that could not stand objections, he forced him to get into the car, brought him to the city, locked him in a party hotel room, declaring that when he opened it in the morning, all fears of death would pass once and for all. In the morning, the singer, who turned gray with horror, ordered to be taken home, since the second night could be his last. The request was fulfilled.

It is necessary to pay tribute to our hero: then he mastered the entire course of the medical institute in absentia and passed the shocked commission with “excellent” marks in all the final exams. It is only necessary to add that the commission in full force came to him, and not he to her, since everything remained as before with his phobias of death.

At the same time, as a talented and versatile person, he went through the school of traditional medicine and healing and began to help people. High-ranking patients from Moscow flew to him on personal planes, but he was not given official permission to provide assistance. Now they don’t ask whether there is a license or not, and the Academy of Traditional Medicine appeared, and then the inspectors scoured, like agents of the Inquisition, among isolated representatives of alternative medicine.

By chance, one of our students, an admirer of this artist’s talent, talked to him about psychological methods of treating obsessive fears, in which the author of these lines already had some experience. The next request of the patient was not rejected and, of course, I had to ask about the whole background of the death phobia, which is not so rare in our practice.

The cardinal psychogenic (traumatic) event was a severe flu with brain complications, transferred at the age of 8. There was a high temperature, and a clouded consciousness, and a state close to clinical death. Note that this is 8 years old, and earlier 8 years were like 7 years now, that is, the fear of death is an integral part of the psychology of this age, and even a sharpened right-hemispheric orientation of the personality and a life-threatening disease, which, by the way, was reflected in dreams where he died several times.

Only one very elderly herbalist really helped the boy, with whom he was later associated with many years of friendship. Two years later, the headache stopped, sleep returned to normal. As a teenager, he played football with good results, when suddenly, in his youth, the gift of singing was discovered, which surprised all the acquaintances.

Next — the Conservatory, the scenes of Paris, Tokyo, New York. But then — overload, breakdown, resumption of childhood, not outlived fears and the development, perhaps, of the most difficult obsessive-compulsive disorder to treat, in this case, the fear of death. About what kind of dream he had all these years, you can not talk.

What would you advise, dear readers, in my place? No doubt some of you will exclaim, “Eureka! He needs to play games that eliminate the fears associated with the fear of death, the same loneliness, darkness, confined space, fears of attack by monsters, elements, heights, depths, war, injections and unexpected sounds.

Yes you are right. The only question is with whom to play and how. His son is already big, he studies and lives separately, so he is not up to the game. But two adopted daughters, 8 and 11 years old, from the second wife are just what you need: the age is right, and they will not resist the game. We talked with them and, without focusing on the stepfather, offered to play together, first with us, and then with him separately. Fortunately, the house was wooden, two-story, and even with an attic and a basement.

We played tag, hide and seek, shook hands with everyone and left, expressing the hope to meet already in Leningrad. And so it happened. Two months later, a phone call with words of gratitude followed. They seem to be simple games, but their effect is very great if used skillfully: the fear of death passed, became deactivated, our patient returned to Leningrad and came to the dacha only in the summer.

Let’s go back to childhood and note a number of rules for the attitude of parents to the COP, a kind of code of conduct for them.

In the presence of a CS, one should not show excessive adherence to principles, read morality endlessly, shame, send one to sleep in a dark room. If the CS represent isolated cases, then, after calming the child and talking to him affectionately, you can sit next to him in his room, stroking his head, shoulder, arm, singing tenderly or telling some simple story.

Another thing is the constantly recurring CS. Here you need qualified help from a psychologist or a psychotherapist, but for now it is best to bring the child’s bed closer to your own or sleep with him.

It is important to wish good night, without reminding: «Just don’t be afraid.» The latter acts more as an invitation to fears than a denial of them.

Needless to say, the elimination of any «horror» before bed, fairy tales with chilling content, violent games, dense food, stuffiness in the room and physical constraint at night. Even such innocuous activities as washing the feet with cool water before going to bed and airing the room significantly reduce the frequency of CS.

At night, it doesn’t hurt to once again approach a poorly sleeping child, straighten the blanket, say a few kind words. In the morning, it is better to do without an alarm clock, but to approach unnoticed, again stroke and wake up with affectionate words. The more nervous the child, the slower the awakening should be.

During the day, the child should be given a lot of play activity, the opportunity to play mobile, noisy, emotionally rich games. The more tired he is physically during the day, the better he will sleep at night — as they say, «without hind legs.»

You never need to sort things out in the family with a sleeping child, as well as incline him to the side of one of the adults during the day. The same applies to “meaningless”, from the point of view of parents, late-night TV shows and music using powerful amplifiers. Even the baby’s bed should be optimally positioned: along the magnetic axis of the Earth, not in a dark corner and not too bright, without clutter of furniture and the presence of a restlessly sleeping adult nearby.

Frequently ill children deserve special attention, as the probability of developing CS is several times higher. Even elementary acute respiratory infections, otitis, tonsillitis, not to mention bronchitis and pneumonia, can significantly complicate breathing at night, which also complicates the access of oxygen to the lungs and brain.

Oxygen deficiency reflexively turns on the instinct of self-preservation in the form of a feeling of anxiety. In the presence of a traumatic experience of hypoxia, especially asphyxia during pregnancy and childbirth, the mechanism of conditioned reflex reinforcement of the vital, basal-initial anxiety that remains in the subconscious area of ​​the psyche is also triggered, and dreams reflect long-experienced, but emotional stresses that flare up with renewed vigor.

Let us recall in this connection the above cases of obsessive nightmares, especially attacks of nocturnal fear. As a rule, these are often ill, excitable and prone to muscle and vascular spasms children. Psychology is psychology, and the threat of the CS will be completely removed only after strengthening the child’s body and increasing its protective reserve forces.

Therefore, reasonably used systems of physical and somatic recovery, hardening (naturally, not in the pro.e.) are able to completely remove the problem of the CS sooner or later.

The most effective method for eliminating CS in children is the author’s system of PSYCHOLOGICAL OVERCOMING FEARS developed and improved over decades: drawing, dramatization and catharsis as a method of neutralizing the consequences of mental trauma (author’s definition).

Let us reproduce a game catharsis in a 10-year-old girl who sleeps restlessly at night and screams in her sleep: “Go away, go away!”. With a pronounced emotionality and impressionability, it was not difficult for her to remember the horror of being admitted to the hospital without her mother for suspected pneumonia, which turned out to be a cold when she was not even three years old.

Then for several years she was terribly afraid of white coats, but now she cannot fall asleep and sleeps restlessly before any visit to the clinic. Thus, it can be argued that the previous mental trauma is reflected in the mental state of the girl.

In the first act, we played with her and with her mother the so-called «medical fears»: injections, pain and diseases, again indicating the age-related prolongation of experiences that had previously taken place. But in the morning, even with a more or less outwardly calm sleep, she continued to feel depressed.

Then a healing catharsis game was played with the mother, younger sister and assistants. The goal of the game was not communicated to the girl herself, but her positive influence on overcoming fears was emphasized. Everyone sat in a circle on children’s chairs and began to discuss who would play what roles.

The girl volunteered to be herself, that is, «a victim of a cold.» The mother remained in her role and, like her daughter, she had to go back to the already experienced world of anxiety and fear. The father did not show up for the game, and his participation in the life of his daughter was almost zero. The rest of the participants in the game were grandmothers, aunts and uncles, no less anxious and suspicious acquaintances.

In the first act or act of the psychological drama, the atmosphere of hyper-custody and anxiety in the family in the first years of the girl’s life was recreated. Everyone fussed, constantly «pulled» the girl, gave conflicting and mutually exclusive advice. The “grandmother” was especially distinguished by all this, not stepping away from her “granddaughter” and lamenting at any of her ailments.

At the end of the first act, the girl was brought to the «necessary condition», that is, to the initial state of anxiety and fear. It is necessary to perceive this not literally, but conditionally, with a certain amount of irony and humor. Naturally, the specialist sets the tone for all this, creating an atmosphere of cooperation, interest and even excitement in the group.

Improvisation is the main core of the healing game, no one knows how the game interaction will develop and how it will end, the game scenario is written only in general terms. In addition, the head of the game does not clap his hands, like a director, every minute interrupting the action to give instructions. But you don’t have to think that everything goes by itself. Through the role played, the specialist influences the nature of the events taking place, delaying or accelerating the pace of the game, passing by unimportant and too naturalistic episodes.

As it should be after a theatrical action, an intermission is announced: you can walk around, talk, think, cool down. Each action is a completed stage of the therapeutic game with a specific goal. The content of the following game actions is reported immediately before their start.

The second action is «infection», «appearance of disease». There is a redistribution of roles taking into account the wishes of the players. Half of the participants turn into distributors of various diseases and misfortunes, the other half represent their victims. It has already been said that the girl herself appointed herself to be the victim of a cold. Accordingly, «microbes», «causative agents of bad mood and fears, other misfortunes» were just waiting to take decisive action in relation to indecisive, fearful and defenseless children.

«Cold» blew her mouth, waved her arms and coughed, «Influenza» sneezed endlessly, weakened before her eyes and turned red from fever and headache, «Intestinal Infection» clutched at her stomach, carried a pot with her and turned more and more green from poisoning, etc. n. Parents, grandparents constantly groaned, saying that it couldn’t be worse, where such an attack came from, and that it was necessary to urgently take him to the hospital.

On call, a doctor came, shrugging his hands at the sight of such a serious condition and reading a moral about where everyone looked before, that everyone was to blame and that there was no other way out but the hospital, and anything could happen there. Frightened adults begged to save the child and call an ambulance as soon as possible. The latter appeared extremely quickly (the doctor and assistant stood one behind the other, holding hands). It was explained to the parents that there was not enough space in the car and they would not be allowed into the hospital, it was not allowed, it was not ordered, the child was already “big”, etc.

Another intermission, and the third act took place already in the hospital. The girl, like other patients, was placed in boxes (chairs placed at some distance from each other). All «sick» people were strictly forbidden to communicate with each other because of the threat of additional infection, deterioration and death.

More than disciplined nannies, an orderly at the entrance, and the chief doctor, who unanimously repulsed any attempts by mothers to enter the “hospital”, kept order. As expected, «professor’s rounds» were carried out with the appointment of injections and other equally unpleasant procedures. Nurses regularly put them into practice, not paying attention to the fears and unwillingness of children.

In the game, everything was deliberately brought to the level of grotesque and absurdity with a certain amount of humor, which caused the participants maximum involvement, emotional animation and genuine interest in the events taking place. The game was also of great importance for the mother, eliminating previous worries about the state of her daughter. Otherwise, they would continue to sound overly concerned about any of her ailments.

The fourth act was followed by the long-awaited permission of the chief physician for a meeting between mother and daughter, as, indeed, for some other mothers. The criterion was the diligent behavior of children and the absence of fears. The inspection was carried out in the evening, when they were alone and could do whatever they pleased. And then, as often happens, all sorts of terrible stories about the Black Hand, the Queen of Spades, Skeletons and the dead were enough. Among the “sick” there were always alarmists (usually one of the adult participants), the world was not nice to them, they almost immediately began to lament, or even tremble with fear.

But, with the same success, there was also an optimist who believed in a successful outcome of getting rid of fears. It was on this contrast that it was possible to create a more active life-affirming dominant, or the will to health. After an exciting meeting with her daughter, the mother asked to be discharged on receipt, but the attending physician and chief physician remained adamant, describing in detail all the possible complications of such a formidable disease. Such deliberately serious threats acted as a neutralizing or desensitizing (weakening) factor in reducing the mother’s anxiety, which has remained since those times and is associated with medical errors and shortcomings.

A few more days passed, and everyone began to talk about the obvious improvement in the girl’s condition: she coughed less, turned pink and looked more confident.

The fifth, final, action began with the solemn permission of the head physician to be discharged, the apotheosis of which was a stormy meeting of the mother and all relatives with the girl, with hugs, tears and a friendly walk to the house under the parting words of the doctors about preventing such a stupid disease in the future as a cold.

“Germs”, “diseases”, “misfortunes” appeared again, but no one managed to persuade the girl to their side. After the game, she noticeably cheered up, as if shed the burden of past worries, freed herself from them. This was the therapeutic meaning of the game. The night’s sleep became calmer, and the girl was no longer tormented by nightmares.

We talked about only one method of game catharsis that we developed. It, like other methods, is the essence of the method of game neutralization of the consequences of mental trauma.

It is necessary to start with overcoming the fears that are relevant in the present using the previously described method of “playful dramatization of fears”, and then move on to the playful elimination of emotional traces of previously experienced fears.

Recall that in the game dramatization of fears, the therapeutic effect of overcoming them is provided mainly by taking the role of an object or a source of threat. In the story with Little Red Riding Hood, this will be the role of the Wolf, who is now as aggressive now as Little Red Riding Hood, that is, the child, was afraid of him.

The reverse role reversal already shows the effect of learning (the therapeutic reaction of negative emotions): the child in the role of Little Red Riding Hood is not only not afraid, but can also “knock in the nose” the Wolf, not to mention the protection of Grandmother from him. So the Hunter is not needed at the end, the ending is already prosperous.

If the child does not dare to immediately enter into a threatening image, then the role-playing dramatization of fears consists of three actions: the child plays, in essence, himself, that is, he is afraid, but still not like in life; then he frightens, and one of the adults plays him as if he is not afraid; the child becomes himself again, but already provides adequate psychological protection. So the fairy tale «Little Red Riding Hood» acts as a successful help for the method of playful dramatization of fears.

When neutralizing the experienced fears, a greater therapeutic effect is achieved precisely due to the repeated, less traumatic experience of previously experienced fears. They can no longer injure, because they are of a conditional game character.

During the game, make-up, scenery, stage and other theatrical attributes are not used. The plank reminds of the road, the chair reminds of the house, the toy Christmas tree is a forest, etc. In addition, the game is always life-affirming in nature, with a positive solution to previously unsolvable problems. Permeates the game and humor, since the previous dramatic situations are perceived as an occasion for witty play, in which the child’s creativity is revealed to the maximum.

At the end, he is rewarded with a handshake, friendly words uttered by the chorus of all those present (similar to the way the actors go for an «encore» after the end of the performance). Yes, and before the start of the game, each of the participants in the medical game (and this can be two, three and four, but not more, children) introduces himself to everyone else, announcing publicly what his name is and how old he is.

If the child does not want to be himself at first in an earlier period of his life, then he is given the opportunity to choose any role, but with the condition that in one of the variants of the game he will lose his previous experiences.

If the fear arose earlier under the influence of a traumatic situation and persists to the present, it is necessary that the child be in the role of both himself and the threatening image, no matter in what ratio, more attention should also be paid to other, equally stubborn fears.

Usually this indicates a neurosis of fear, a disturbed system of self-regulation and mental protection.

Here are a few more examples of game neutralization of past fears. We repeat that all the games considered below were carried out after the psychotherapy of fears from 15 thematic games and the role-playing dramatization of fears, which removed the relevance of their impact in the present. So that fears do not recur in dreams and weaken the general neuropsychic stress in children, game neutralization of traumatic episodes from a past life is used (the Method has no analogues in the scientific literature).

A 4-year-old boy with a neurosis of fear could not have been born like most of his peers. The waters broke long before the onset of labor, as a result, stimulation had to be used repeatedly. Due to weakness, they brought the mother only on the third day, he hardly took the breast, he was lethargic, irritable, capricious.

Out of 29 fears at four years old, he had 18 — a high, 2,5 times higher than that of his peers, the average score of fears. At night he screamed, cried, tossed about.

After four gaming sessions to overcome daytime fears, the situation of traumatic birth was lost. Tables, chairs, banquettes were placed in a continuous row. Everywhere they had a hole at the bottom, not very big, but allowing to climb through with some effort. The adults stood upstairs and noisily reacted to the boy’s progress by pressing with their feet, sitting down, rocking tables and chairs, banging on them, etc. At the end of the path stood the father, who joyfully accepted his son in his arms.

A few days later, the boy went with his mother in an overcrowded bus, as always, without tears or tantrums. After two weeks, he began to sleep more calmly and stopped complaining about terrible dreams, from which he could not get out (wake up), as well as be born freely before.

For a 4-year-old girl, the mother could not relieve the burden for a long time until a caesarean section was performed. Later, fears of death, which are very infrequent at this age, manifested by endless washing of hands, developed. Panic fear of unexpected, sudden influences was also noticed, and terrible dreams were serialized.

That she could die without being born was more than likely, and her fear of death with protective rituals that appeared so early appeared as a result of an instinctive fear experienced in utero. The obstetrician’s knife, the suddenness of extraction from the uterus, the instantaneous cutting off of the umbilical cord are also not pleasant sensations. Hence the fear of unexpected impact, fear of new situations, stiffness and tension when communicating with strangers and stuttering as a result of these extreme stresses.

In the game, she agreed to be a girl who tried to climb out of the round holes of children’s tables stacked on top of each other so that a kind of tower was formed, imitating, as you might guess, a uterus. For the girl, it was just another game activity, as always attracting with novelty, suspense and at the same time the opportunity to prove herself, earn approval and praise, and be emotionally accepted.

The building for the game was not created in advance, as a decoration, but was carried out as the initial stage of the game. The girl played with dolls while a tower grew around her, covered with a banquette on top, so that, in the end, a closed space was formed, and the construction process itself was associated with the development of the embryo and fetus in the uterine cavity.

After the construction was completed, the girl tried to climb out of the holes below, but the rest of the participants in the game pushed her back — she could not have been born naturally. Then the top opened, and the girl’s father, bending down inside the tower, lifted her with his hands, to the admiration and relief of the rest of the participants in the game. We repeat: before that there were games to overcome fears of death and fears of unexpected situations. As a result, stuttering quickly subsided, and after a few days only “horns and legs” remained from him.

A 5-year-old boy, also with a neurosis of fear, could not stand dogs, any — from pocket dogs to bulldogs, great danes and shepherd dogs. At the sight of them, he clung to his mother, trembled, cried, and most importantly, since then he stopped sleeping normally at night.

In those «times», at a year and a half, he experienced a strong fright when he was waiting for the elevator with his mother. The elevator door suddenly opened, and the spaniel jumped out, deciding that he was already on the street, and the owner, who did not keep him on a leash, did not order him. From the loud, joyful barking of the dog, our boy was taken aback, screamed in fright, trembled from crying.

Again, we played out all the boy’s previous fears, nevertheless it was felt that he was still tense, constrained and shy in a new, unpredictable situation of communication. And although he was at the most active age for developing the ability to accept and play roles, he could not take advantage of this, preferring an extremely limited circle of contacts, mainly with adults.

In the first act of the drama, Sasha (as we will call him) remained himself, like his mother. The author played the role of the owner of the ill-fated dog, and the latter was portrayed by one of the psychologists who is undergoing training with us. The rest of the participants in the game, including the father, formed the walls of the elevator with their clasped hands. The elevator shook, went, Sasha «pressed the button», and the elevator stopped. Two adults raised their hands like a door, and the «spaniel» burst out, trying to pounce on the boy. Everything worked out, as then, Sasha trembled and tried to run away from the “dog” chasing him.

In the second act, he portrayed the object of fear, that is, the dog. The author remained its owner, and the father was a boy. As soon as the dog broke free, the “boy”, unlike the previous scene, did not run away anywhere, but standing like a monolith, loudly, looking directly into the dog’s eyes, ordered: “Stop!” The dog stopped, as if rooted to the spot, squealed, grumbled and returned to the owner. A lesson in proper conduct had been taught.

In the third act, the boy again in his role repeated the previous behavior of his father in the role of «boy», ordering the dog to stop. Then he entered the elevator with his mother, and everyone safely reached the first floor and went about their business.

After the game, the parents noted a decrease in the dog’s fears to the usual alertness in this case at their appearance. Our patient’s night became calm and the monsters disappeared from his dreams, as if they had never existed.

So, the method of game neutralization of the consequences of mental trauma, in this case, night frights, implies the role-playing involvement of children and parents in the game action; reversal of the roles of aggressor and victim; a positive (constructive) solution to a previously traumatic situation through the emotional elaboration of the game scenario opposite to the affect of fear; and, of course, emotional contact with the child and parents, faith on both sides in the positive, visible results of psychotherapy.

In conclusion, we present the main factors that indicate a reliable likelihood of CS in children.

1. Difficulty falling asleep from birth, followed by restless sleep and feeling unwell during the day.
2. The presence of CS in parents of the same sex, especially in mothers of girls.
3. Neurotic attachment (dependence) of children to an overprotective, fearful and anxiously suspicious mother, which is most pronounced when the father’s role in the family is insufficient, combined with his cruelty.
4. Poor tolerance of expectation, uncertainty; fears when dealing with strangers, when answering and speaking.
5. Increased suggestibility combined with a magical mood and low self-esteem.
6. Excessive number of daytime fears, primarily: attacks, illness (infection), death of oneself and death of parents, animals (especially snakes), elements, heights, as well as depths, fire, fire and war. Fears before falling asleep, including the triad of fears we identified — loneliness, darkness and confined space. Supplement with daytime fears of the Wolf, Baba Yaga, Barmaley, Koshchey, Serpent Gorynych at preschool age; Queen of Spades, Black Hand, Skeletons, ghosts, devils at an older age.
7. Neurotic personality disorder in mothers and children.

For girls, a number of factors should be added:

A. Toxicosis of pregnancy in the mother.

B. Fears of unexpected, sudden situations.

B. Openness in character (right hemisphere).

D. Conflict relations with the father and physical punishment on his part.

Let us present the provisions already known to us in the form of the following conclusions:

1. Nightmares are a «night reality» as a reflection of the fears and experiences of children and parents with a developed emotional, figurative memory, impressionability and imagination.
2. Nightmares are one of the essential ways to respond to negative life experiences associated with the threat of family and social rejection, condemnation and punishment.
3. Nightmares are an irrational way of processing fears that threaten life, as well as the neurotic state of children and mothers.
4. Most nightmares are in the older preschool age, where there is a maximum of fears motivated by the fear of death.
5. The experience of death first occurs in a dream, outstripping the daytime fears of fairy tale characters, but retaining them in the future in the form of fears of monsters and sudden impact.
6. A more pronounced instinct for self-preservation in girls is reflected in the greater frequency and repetition of CS, as well as in the earlier experience of death in a dream.
7. The psychological mechanisms for infecting boys with fears and, accordingly, nightmares are neurotic attachment to the mother, emphasized by the absence of a father, insufficient influence or cruelty. To a greater extent, this is observed in the younger preschool age. In girls, the mechanism of gender-role identification with an anxious, suspicious and neurotic mother in older preschool age plays a leading role in the transmission of nightmares.

We were convinced, confirming the initial hypothesis about the reflection in the CS of age-related problems in the development of children, disturbed family relationships, inadequacy of upbringing and unfavorable personal characteristics of parents, that due to their diagnostic function and negative impact on mental health, CSs deserve the most careful study and as early as possible elimination in order to prevent the appearance of neuroses as a psychogenic disease of the child’s emerging personality.

With an already developed neurosis, nightmares help to better understand the experiences of children, their internal, psychological conflict and effectively use modern methods of psychotherapy for neuroses, disturbed family relationships and improper upbringing.

From the editors.

We publish here the point of view of A.I. Zakharov, because he is a recognized authority on the topic «working with fears in children.» At the same time, today such an approach is no longer close to us; it is much faster and easier to work with the fears of children. At the University of Practical Psychology, students are testing the tools they have received on their children, and they are very pleased with the results. Come to UPP, we will show and tell everything. In the meantime, briefly, writes Alexey Zh.:

Saved my 10 year old niece from nightmares. He used the tactic to teach his niece not to cry and scream, but (right in a dream!) Fight monsters, fight back, beat with hands, feet and any improvised objects. It worked! It took 5 hours of time (from 00:30 to 5:30 in the morning) and 7 attempts of the niece to fall asleep to achieve the goal. The niece now walks around happy, boasting: she no longer has nightmares!