^{Featured photo credit: Greg Rakozy}

By: Dr. Delso Batista

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In the autumn of 2025, I enrolled in an introductory certification program on Decolonising Psychotherapy offered by the BAATN-UK (Black and Asian Therapists Network). After four years of studying decolonisation, coloniality, and psychology for my doctoral research, I felt a strong need for embodiment and alternative practice in my work as a psychotherapist. I longed to actualise my understanding and ways of relating, which have not been adequately addressed in the psychology curriculum at Western and neoliberal academic institutions. My gut feeling led me to a feeling that something essential was missing, and concurrently, I felt an increasing urge to understand psychology as a process that often overlooks and denies the historical wounds inflicted by colonialism (Watkins & Shulman, 2010).

In the first encounter of the course certification, I felt dwelling between joy and sorrow: I found myself gathered in a collaborative endeavour, hoping to envision a renewed practice of therapy, while, upon arrival, we shared a collective exhaustion, hurt, and pain. In an atmosphere of growing care, respect and openness, we started the training, checking in with each other, centring our humanness, our hopes and our shared grief. Through naming their recent experiences with loss, one participant shared experiencing drowning in an underworld. These words resonated with me. I felt a call. I learned something about myself as I found the name of a place of rupture I was navigating at the frontiers after dealing with consecutive losses of family members in my homeland, Brazil, while I was still in the UK, completing my studies. By naming and acknowledging my losses and griefs through dialogue and collectivism, I was welcoming a corrective imaginary world (Brown, 2024), which entails creating a vision of an underworld, the world of the soul: a transitional space of rupture between what is lost and what exists, between the living and the dead. (Watkins & Shulman, 2010). Surprisingly, I felt held, supported and connected. I thought that I was able to experience shared grief as we were reunited to reimagine therapy, otherwise. I was between the underworld and the otherworld: healing that comes from ancestrality, rituals and envisioning (Mullan, 2023).

Between worlds, I self-reflect on how often we as therapists are encouraged, supported, and empowered to engage with dreaming as a way to cope with grief. In this reflection, I have been asking the following questions:

1. Are we learning and transmitting dreams as part of psychology teaching, learning?
2. Are we open to envisioning alternative psychological theories and practices that prioritise collective struggles rather than merely echoing and reinforcing colonial violence?
3. Are we, as healing practitioners, creating environments for therapy participants[1] allowing them to explore dreaming within the therapeutic relationship?

This essay aims to initiate a dialogue and reframe dreaming as an ancestral indigenous practice within the context of therapeutic care. First, I find it essential to emphasise the relevance of dreams to psychological perspectives. In the mainstream psy-field, dreams are viewed as a symbolic pathway for understanding and diagnosis. For example, in psychoanalysis, dreams are often considered a subjective and fantastical process, a “royal road to the unconscious” (Siegel, 2010), conceptualised as “the expression of the fulfilment of a desire and the avoidance of displeasure” (Roudinesco & Plon, 1998, p. 113). Since the last century, dream analysis has been widely used in psychotherapy to reveal unconscious conflicts, facilitate insight, and track therapeutic progress (Siegel, 2010). Similarly, Psychological research and education on dreaming focus on the functions and interpretations of individual dreams, striving to provide theoretical explanations for their content and purposes, thus marking dreams as an analytical category (King et al., 2011, p. 56). However, dreaming involves more than just individual mental processes that take place during sleep and require interpretation. It also includes collective dreaming while awake and the envisioning we hold for the future. In addition, Capitalism has turned consumerism into a form of materialised dreaming. Consequently, the possession of land, access to and permanence in power structures, the ability to cross borders freely, and the achievement of social hierarchies have all become intertwined with individual dreams. Nevertheless, dreaming is an ordinary and ancestral experience, involving the imagination of other ways and other worlds (Chilisa, 2019; Dutra & Ojha, 2016; King et al., 2011; Watkins & Shulman, 2010). King et al (2011, p. 208) define dreams as “vivid experiences and vital statements about our aesthetic and spiritual realities, our internal psychological integration, intimate relations with others, and the social worlds in which we live”. In this sense, dreaming is much more than a cognitive process or material for interpretation. Dreaming is “a natural process of the imagination” (King et al., 2011, p. 1), an “ability of future-making” (Dutra & Ojha, 2016, p. 56).

              Dreaming is essential for envisioning healing the losses caused by colonialism (Chilisa, 2019; Laenui, 2000). Decolonisation views dreams as not only personal experiences but also as collective, ancestral, and visionary spaces that facilitate cultural resurgence, identity restoration, and resistance (Chilisa, 2019; Kovach, 2021; Smith, 2021). Conceção Evaristo teaches that “dreams fertilise life and avenge death”(Mombaça, 2021, p. 13). Reflecting on the pain of grief can be a source of strength when envisioning new worlds, ways of being, and forms of connection among individuals. For example, in Aboriginal communities, Dreamtime signifies a shared relational experience in which collective stories, diverse expressions, and inclusive ways of knowing unite individuals and open new possibilities for the community (Nirmal & Dey, 2022). This illustrates how dreaming fosters connections and enables the community to envision a better future, also in the face of adversity and loss, as dreams function as a powerful cultural practice—reconnecting individuals to ancestral roots, aiding in the healing of colonial and intergenerational trauma, encoding strategies of resistance, and restoring a sense of identity and belonging. Consequently, honouring the Dreamtime in mental health care involves welcoming sacred practices that allow participants in therapy to share knowledge, connection, and care. This approach creates opportunities for continuity in their relationships with each other, the land, and their histories—encompassing what has existed and what is yet to come.

In addition, dreaming serves as a vital process for shifting colonial legacies present in therapy and as a powerful strategy for healing, care, and self-determination rooted in indigenous cosmologies. According to Laneui (2000), the decolonisation process comprises five key stages:

1. Rediscovery and Recovery: This stage involves reconnecting with Indigenous knowledge and culture to reclaim identity and a sense of self.
2. Mourning: Here, the focus is on acknowledging and grieving the collective losses inflicted by colonisation, enabling communities to process their pain.
3. Dreaming: This critical phase is about envisioning a future that is free from colonial constraints, embracing self-determination, and fostering hope.
4. Commitment: At this stage, individuals actively engage in challenging oppressive systems and advocating for the rights of Indigenous peoples.
5. Action: Finally, this stage emphasises the change and transformation through the revitalisation of Indigenous languages, cultures, and governance structures.

Consequently, teaching and learning about dreaming as an ancestral practice means collective envisioning within psychology and therapy training is crucial for the times of uncertainty, collective pain, grief and rage we are in the 21^st century. It fosters the integration of collectivism, cultural narratives, and the reimagining of futures where both therapists and participants harness transformative processes for care, understanding, accountability, and healing. As a pedagogical approach, dreaming enables a critical examination of harmful therapeutic practices. It informs a “trans-Atlantic understanding of belonging, co-resistance, and decolonisation” (Brouwer & Kuenen, 2025) by inviting the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge systems, literature, languages, and worldviews, as well as the collective experiences of colonised communities, into the therapeutic relationship (Chilisa, 2019, p. 13). Furthermore, dreaming as a decolonial strategy is cocreated as a vital pathway to envision alternative futures and reconstruct social orders that honour the rich tapestry of Indigenous identities and aspirations, working to restore the imbalances and voids perpetuated by the interconnections between psychology and coloniality.

As we explore the world of dreams, I invite you, fellow therapists, to practice reflexivity. How can you ensure that your healing and care practices do not reinforce colonial violence? Additionally, how can you embrace liberation as a practice that envisions alternatives within psychotherapy? Departing from the understanding that “colonisation as the core wound”(Mullan, 2023), dreaming in therapy serves as an open invitation to reforest our imagination (Núñez, 2021). It allows us to create opportunities for dialogue and fosters a shared understanding of the disconnection and separation from the land, community, and home caused by colonial legacies. Why? Because the time for denial is over (Brown, 2024, p. 43) The historical wounds of colonisation continue to perpetuate the politics of fear, silence and denial (Kilomba, 2016), which are forms of disconnection, stemming from the internalisation of racial hierarchies, gendered and sexual violence, classism, exploitative relationships with nature, systemic oppression, displacement, and genocide across the globe in times we keep insisting on calling Modernity. These elements are intricately tied to the dehumanisation, denigration, and exclusion of indigenous knowledge systems. So, fellow therapists, we need to stop calling ourselves or our practices free from biases, claiming that methods are meant to be effective for almost every person, as they rely on evidence-based and scientific approaches for meaning making, while realities of continuous extraction, exclusion and exploitation are happening outside the privilege of our therapy spaces.

Notably, the imposition of a Eurocentric canon in psychology suggests that these dynamics can impact the field, as it often relies on universal, neutral, and objective standards that may overlook or marginalise the lived experiences and healing practices of those affected by such histories (Spivak, 2023). Colonisation renders the other as not existing. The coloniser proudly claims to have discovered land, people, and cultures, creating a narrative that suggests everything before their discoveries was previously myth, savagery, and absence (Chilisa, 2019; Kovach, 2021; Smith, 2021). As a result, colonisation is still a god-like narrative creating the racialised other existence. In specific, an inferior exotic, unintelligent existence. Dreaming allows us to reclaim the ancestral vision of the ontological, relational, and ethical existence of the black and brown communities who have walked this earth before the arrival and wound-making of colonisation.  Subsequently, recognising that psychology remains a colonial way of knowing, reclaiming dreaming as a therapeutic practice entails dismantling the ongoing appropriation of dreams as mere subjects for interpretation and diagnosis. As mainstream psychology has historically focused on extracting dreams from their cultural and spiritual contexts, reducing them to material for diagnosis or symbolic analysis, rather than recognising their broader communal, spiritual, and healing functions, reclaiming dreaming means learning and relating, as indigenous people learn through the ways of the forest. That is, for indigenous communities, the forest is not merely a resource to be extracted and exploited. Instead, it is viewed as a realm of intersubjectivity and meaning-making that shapes their experiences. An example from South America, for the Yanomami, the forest is equivalent to the university[2] where Westerners seek education (Krenak, 2019). Within this approach, the forest plays a crucial role in everyday life, guiding relationships and warning of challenges or good fortune (Wunder, 2021). Ultimately, dreaming is situated as a potent approach to reforest our imagination (Núñez, 2021) as it invites therapists to centre healing on relationality, envisioning and respect for all life forms.

Dreaming can be an open door for therapists to create visionary spaces (Brown, 2024) and relational instances that interweave the past, present, and future within the framework of collective healing and joy, where colonialism no longer rules our lives (Negrón-Muntaner, 2020). Furthermore, by creating visionary spaces for dreaming, I mean acknowledging therapists’ positionalities and privileges within their social context and taking responsibility for redistributing resources, time, knowledge, effort, and care opportunities to envision change (Brown, 2024, p. 44). This shift allows us to honour dreams not only as personal experiences but also as vital communal yarns that can guide us toward understanding our shared histories and visions for alternative futures. Moreover, dreaming in the therapeutic context can be essential to response to sorrow, rage and grief. By embracing dreaming in this way, we can create a humanised and reciprocal therapeutic landscape that enables individuals and communities to heal and envision futures beyond the limitations of colonial narratives.

If dreaming is a response to mourning, it is an ancestral form of creation in the face of historical and continuous losses caused by colonisation. The dreamtime is the landscape colonisation fails to occupy. It remains a border and frontier in the unfinished decolonisation project (Maldonado-Torres, 2020) that continues to resist. As we dream, we renew ourselves into a future of joy, pleasure and connection, disrupting colonial extraction, exploitation and exclusion. In honouring and creating visionary spaces for dreaming in the therapeutic relationship, therapists and participants in therapy are connecting threads and yearning for what it was, what it is and what is to become. A visionary space in which therapists and therapy participants are in dialogue and relationship, envisioning that “something else can emerge, is emerging, even if it is still small and rare” (Brown, 2024, p. 45). In addition, dreaming is essential to change lived experiences (Freire, 1996). Colonisation is about the removal of land, cultures, languages, and subjectivity; decolonisation is about return (Mullan, 2023). Consequently, dreaming is a vessel for navigating the past lost due to colonisation, while colonial legacies continuously threaten the present and future. As a result, dreaming in therapy means partnering with therapy participants to weave alternatives in connection with each other, ourselves, and the context we live in. Right. But how? My vision is that it starts with Self-Examination and Dialogue:

1. Imagine a world where therapists create visionary spaces that invite individuals to dream about alternative approaches in both theory and practice. What if we could recover what has been lost and embrace a pluralistic approach to therapy? Supervision and training could transform into dynamic containers for dialogue, a space where everyone involved is encouraged to reach beyond the confines of mainstream Western care. In this vibrant environment, we could weave together collectivism, imagination, storytelling, relationality, and joy, positioning these elements as powerful tools for reimagining the future of psychotherapy. Let’s envision a therapy landscape that celebrates pluriversity and imagination in healing.
2. Imagine a transformative approach to therapy where joy, ancestry, and desire take centre stage, reshaping our understanding of the therapeutic relationship away from pathologising individuals. Picture the therapeutic space as a thriving forest, filled with diverse and distinct beings, each connecting and coexisting beautifully. What if we could envision socialisation and politics that foster horizontal relations, rather than perpetuating hierarchies that diminish our shared humanity? Let’s dream of a liberating therapy that inspires the abolition and dismantling of the systems that perpetuate disenfranchisement and alienation from our unique selves. Together, we can cultivate a space where every individual’s essence is celebrated and cherished, paving the way for a more inclusive and joyful existence.
3. Imagine a therapeutic space where dreaming and creating blend seamlessly into the work of healing. Picture participants being gently invited to daydream, engaging in a joyful co-creation process that fosters healing, self-determination, and balance. Envision a future in which their experiences, unique perspectives, and ways of relating are not only acknowledged but also celebrated. It’s a space that honours the profound connections we share with the land and with one another, fostering a sense of community and belonging.
4. Imagine a world where therapists work to create spaces for exploring the depths of dreamspace through various forms of dreamwork. Picture this achieved through storytelling, poetry, music, art, film, and many other expressive and artistic practices. Participants in therapy could be encouraged to engage with questions such as: What realities do you dream of for yourself in the future, once you have overcome the current pain you are experiencing? What futures would you envision for you and your community in caring and connecting? What is the role of dreaming in your life? This engagement is not new for psychotherapy. The difference lies in the intention of such approaches in a commitment towards action that has at its core undoing the continuous harm caused by colonialism, as the dream allows responding to the losses, wounds and grief of colonisation.

In essence, therapists are invited to reimagine and envision the therapeutic space and relationships with therapy participants, and to unlearn the harms of therapy, such as diagnosing and interpreting dreams, or centring dreams as materialistic, capitalist, and hierarchical forms of individual achievement. In conclusion, reclaiming dreaming in therapeutic relationships should not only prompt envisioning care and relationships otherwise, but also prompt therapists to be deeply committed to creating and facilitating visionary spaces for therapy participants to look for answers to the following question: What dreams did we lose due to the rule of colonialisation in our lives? What dreams will we find if we dry out the murky and muddy waters of the oceans of oppression? What futures can be imagined and designed in every therapeutic relationship happening every single day?

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References

Brouwer, M., & Kuenen, E. (2025). Dreaming across Waters: Decolonial Belonging, Dreamscapes, and Waterviews in Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau’s Ourse bleue and Ayesha Harruna Attah’s The Deep Blue Between. European journal of American studies, 20(20-1).

Brown, A. M. (2024). Loving corrections. AK Press.

Chilisa, B. (2019). Indigenous research methodologies. Sage publications.

Dutra, R., & Ojha, S. (2016). Designing Learning Environments for Social Dreaming: From Inquiry to Insight, and Action. https://doi.org/10.1145/3003397.3003402

Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogia da autonomia [Pedagogy of autonomy]. São Paulo: Paz e Terra.

Kilomba, G. (2016). Decolonizing knowledge. Lecture announcement, Akademie der Künste der Welt.

King, P., Bulkeley, K., & Welt, B. (2011). Dreaming in the classroom: Practices, methods, and resources in dream education. State University of New York Press.

Kovach, M. (2021). Indigenous methodologies: Characteristics, conversations, and contexts. University of Toronto press.

Krenak, A. (2019). Um Rio Um Pássaro  [A River A Bird].

Laenui, P. (2000). Processes of decolonization. Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision, 150-160.

Maldonado-Torres, N. (2020). What is decolonial critique? Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, 41(1), 157-183.

Mombaça, J. (2021). Não vão nos matar agora [They won’t kill us now]. Editora Cobogó.

Mullan, J. (2023). Decolonizing therapy: Oppression, historical trauma, and politicizing your practice. WW Norton & Company.

Negrón-Muntaner, F. (2020). Decolonial joy: theorising from the art of valor y cambio. In Theorising cultures of equality (pp. 171-194). Routledge.

Nirmal, A., & Dey, S. (2022). Histories, Myths and Decolonial Interventions: A Planetary Resistance. Taylor & Francis.

Núñez, G. (2021). Monoculturas do pensamento e a importância do reflorestamento do imaginário. ClimaCom: Diante dos Negacionismos, 8(21), 1-8.

Roudinesco, E., & Plon, M. (1998). Dicionário de psicanálise, trad [Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, translated]. Vera Ribeiro, Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar.

Siegel, A. B. (2010). Dream interpretation in clinical practice: A century after Freud. Sleep Medicine Clinics, 5(2), 299-313.

Smith, L. T. (2021). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Spivak, G. C. (2023). Can the subaltern speak? In Imperialism (pp. 171-219). Routledge.

Watkins, M., & Shulman, H. (2010). TOWARD PSYCHOLOGIES OF LIBERATION. In.

Wunder, A. (2021). Literaturas indígenas, educação e sonho. Leitura: Teoria & Prática, 39(83), 163-177.

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[1] In “Decolonising Therapy,” Jennifer Mullen suggests reframing the colonial language of power within therapeutic settings. Instead of using terms like “clients” (which implies a transactional relationship) or “patients” (which is derived from a medical and hierarchical model of care), she advocates for using the term “therapy participants.” This shift emphasises self-determination and promotes a more horizontal approach in decolonial therapy, psychotherapy, and counselling.

[2] For the Yanomami, the forest is equivalent to the university where Westerners seek education; however, this is not aligned with the model of education geared towards the job market, titles and hierarchies of knowledge that we see in Western neoliberal academia. Krenak compares and argues that the forest serves as a university in the sense of “universus,” the whole world, embodying a world in which plurality establishes its boundaries.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Delso Batista (He/Him) holds a PhD in Psychology from Nottingham Trent University and a Master’s in Psychology, Psychotherapy, and Counselling. He is a Registered Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP, BACP No. 392444), a Graduate Member of the British Psychological Society (BPS), a EuroPsy Psychologist (EFPA), and a member of the Portuguese Psychologists’ Association (OPP No. 25359). Delso works as a psychotherapist and collaborates with the online psychology and psychotherapy platform RUMO as Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Coordinator, as well as with Docklands Outreach in London. His research and clinical practice focus on LGBTQIA+ experiences, migration, racialisation, and the intersections between psychology and decolonial processes.