Research Question:

 What might happen if a clinician incorrectly interprets a dream? Can this influence a patient's beliefs about the past?

Previous research:

A pilot study showed the basic misinformation effect on a different sort of material:

• Ss were asked to report some details about a dream
• Session 1-- they learned a list of words
• Session 2-- items from their dream were used as mis-information about what was on the list
• Session 3-- Ss recalled the list

Present Research

Students were first given the LEI (Life Events Questionnaire)

• LEI assesses the likelihood and the Ss confidence of whether several events happened to them before they were three years old (rated on an 8 point likert scale)
• There are three critical items on the LEI:

• 25 -- control condition
• 25 in dream condition, 19 completed it

Each person was individually interviewed by a well-known and persuasive clinical psychologists about a dream (the psychologists apparently played up his authority by emphasizing how very qualified he was to interpret dreams)

Therapist followed a general script during the interview, and eventually suggested to each participant that his or her dream implied that he or she may have:

3-4 weeks after the first LEI, the came back to fill out another one.

Results

Percentage of participants in the dream condition whose LEI scores changed from time 1 to time 2

• Lost in Public

• Abandoned by parents

• Found self lost and lonely

Same sort of analysis was computed looking at the average increase as well, with the same results

To make sure the interview really influenced the critical items instead of just leaving the participants feeling more negative in general, the same analyses were also run on the negative filler items of the LEI, but the two conditions did not differ on these items

Their Conclusion:

"Our data show that even a randomly generated hypothesis can be embraced by individuals and can produce profound changes in the way they view their past"

As such, therapists must be cognizant of the power they have over their patients to change their world views in either a positive or a negative manner-- that is, if they make a false interpretation, this mistake might carry great consequences for the well-being of the client.

My Questions

How often to conversations end up revolving around interpretations of dreams or past events? It is entirely likely that randomly generated and inaccurate hypotheses about dreams are suggested all the time in conversation.

If this is the case, then our belief about the past might be influenced and changed all the time, as a matter of course in normal conversation. Thus perhaps a therapists does not have much more of an impact on one's interpretation of the past than any other opinionated conversation partner.