According to survey studies, nearly 5% of the German population suffer from chronic nightmares. Generally, these dreams cause considerable distress and have a negative impact on many aspects of everyday life.

We conducted a randomised-controlled trial in the "Center for Psychotherapy of Goethe University Frankfurt" in order to compare two established nightmare treatments:

One of these stands in the tradition of confrontation in behaviour therapy. Patients take a closer look at their nightmares and confront themselves with the feared content in the safe environment of the therapy room. In the other treatment, nightmare content is changed in imagery to a desirable story, and the changed nightmare script is rehearsed daily.

Both treatments have individually been shown to be effective, but it is still not totally understood, how they work. Our trial's goals are to compare their effectiveness and to enhance our understandig of their working mechanisms.

Study treatments are completed. At the moment, we analyse collected data and prepare their publication.

Study direction:
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Stangier
PD Dr. Regina Steil

Study coordinator:
Dipl. Psych. Carolin Schmid