Another Night, Another Dream, but Always You
- Deric Hollings
- 2 minutes ago
- 10 min read
Regarding professional care for mental, emotional, and behavioral health (collectively “mental health”), there are many psychotherapeutic modalities available. My preferred model is Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) which aims to help people get better, not merely feel better.
For instance, the American Psychological Association (APA) defines catharsis as “in psychoanalytic theory, the discharge of previously repressed affects connected to traumatic events that occurs when these events are brought back into consciousness and re-experienced.”
Those professional mental health practitioners you’ve likely seen in film, on television, or elsewhere who use a couch with the client facing away from the clinician while discussing past events, dreams, and other matters are generally associated with psychoanalysis.
The function of catharsis during such psychotherapeutic (colloquially “therapy”) sessions is said to be achieved by the second APA definition of this term as “more generally, the release of strong, pent-up emotions.” Thus, psychoanalytic catharsis supposedly helps people feel better.
The late psychologist Albert Ellis, who developed REBT, stated, “I was trained in liberal psychoanalysis by a psychiatrist who was a fellow of the Karen Horney School. I practiced psychoanalysis from 1947 to 1953 and then I abandoned it,” and, “I concluded in 1953 ‘this psychoanalysis is crap!’”
Sometimes prospective clients who’ve likely watched varying forms of media (e.g., TikTok) contact me to help decipher their dreams, as analysts supposedly do, perhaps as a method of achieving catharsis. “It’s your dream,” I like to say, “so how could I know what it means?”
I’m not an analyst, nor do I believe that professional mental health providers can accurately interpret dreams. According to one source, psychoanalytic therapy is also called “psychodynamic psychotherapy” and “involves the patient coming several times a week.”
Analysists will sure as shit take your money for meeting with them three to five times per week, ostensibly claiming the ability to decipher dreams, though call me broke, because I ain’t buyin’ what they’re selling! Do you have $400 to $500 per week to burn? Notably, Ellis also stated:
In psychoanalysis, the most important procedures involve free association, dream interpretation, analysis of the patient’s past history in minute detail, and analysis of the transference relationship between the patient and the analyst. The assumption is that if one gets the patient to understand how he got the way he is, somehow his newly found insight will—rather magically, I would say—clear everything up for him and he will marvelously change.
Another assumption is that if he works out various difficulties in his relationship with the analyst, he will thereby learn to work out similar difficulties in his relationships with others. When I was practicing classical analysis, and later when I practiced psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy, I found that some of the major analytic assumptions simply do not work; and many other practicing therapists have independently made the same discovery.
I found, for example, that you can give patients loads of insight and they still often do not get better. You can show them exactly how they got to be emotionally disturbed in the first place and again they don’t significantly improve their feelings or their behavior.
And you can work on and work out all kinds of involved love-hate relationships between the patient and the analyst and, perversely enough, many patients still do not generalize their analytic transference teachings and sagely apply them to their outside relationships.
Because it was found, after several years of my practicing classical analysis and analytically oriented therapy, that many of the Freudian and neo-Freudian assumptions simply do not work, I gradually evolved the system of rational psychotherapy which I now employ and which is being increasingly employed by many other therapists throughout this country.
I can’t interpret dreams, others likely cannot either, Ellis concluded that psychoanalysis didn’t work, and so he created REBT which I currently practice as a method of helping people to get better instead of to merely feel better. Further contemplating this matter, I think of high school.
During my senior year, the album Another Night (1995) was released by electronic dance music (EDM) group Real McCoy (also known as M.C. Sar & The Real McCoy). With rapping by Olaf Jeglitza and singing by Karin Kasar, one source states of the song “Another Night”:
In 2008, “Another Night” was ranked at number 91 on Billboard magazine’s “Top 100 Songs of the First 50 Years of the Hot 100. Ten years later, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Hot 100, “Another Night” ranked at position 117. In 2025, the magazine ranked it among “The 100 Best Dance Songs of All Time”.
“Another Night” was a big tune! As well, it was as though the song was virtually inescapable during 1995, as it was played at house parties, in the parking lot of Amarillo High School, on the radio, and elsewhere. I liked it then, and just as much now. For context, the lyrics state:
In the night, in my dreams, I’m in love with you
‘Cause you talk to me like lovers do
When the night is gone, I’ll be alone
Another night, another dream, but always you
Another night, another dream, but always you
In the night, I dream of love so true
For illustration, imagine that Kasar sought mental health services with me. Hypothetically speaking, she complains about dreams of unrequited love (a love which is not reciprocated, one-sided, or more generally unequal, resulting in a yearning for more complete love).
I’d assist the vocalist by showing how REBT uses unconditional acceptance (UA) to relieve self-induced suffering. This is accomplished through use of unconditional self-acceptance (USA), unconditional other-acceptance (UOA), and unconditional life-acceptance (ULA).
With my approach to REBT, I incorporate author Stephen Covey’s concepts regarding the circles of control, influence, and concern, as well as an area of no concern. UA maps onto the circle of control (USA), circle of influence (UOA), and circle of concern and area of no concern (ULA).
The circle of control encompasses only oneself, the circle of influence encapsulates elements which may be subject to one’s sway, the circle of concern engrosses most matters one can imagine, and the area of no concern relates to all content which isn’t yet imagined.
Regarding Kasar’s circle of control and USA, I’d invite her to accept—without unhelpful conditions—that she has control of only her reaction to unrequited love, being alone, and dreams which are at times joyous and other times painful. Thus, there’s no dream analysis necessary.
Likewise, concerning her circle of influence and UOA, I’d encourage Kasar to acknowledge that other people aren’t always open to being influenced. In fact, it’s perhaps most often the case that she cannot change the minds of others, so she could instead refocus on what she can control.
As it relates to Kasar’s circle of concern and ULA, I’d ask her to admit that in an impermanent and uncertain existence which is inescapably imperfect, focusing on what we can control and influence is arguably a better use of what life we have left before an unavoidable death.
As for the area of no concern, I’d inform Kasar that it may not be useful to dwell on whether or not aliens from another dimension experience similar dreams as she, because “you’re inching closer to death every day, Kasar,” I’d say, “is this really how you want to spend your time?”
No psychoanalysis was required for this blogpost, no psychodynamic theory, and no other psychotherapeutic bullshit that doesn’t work. Thus, if one has “another night, another dream, but always you,” then one can use UA to get better, because feeling better isn’t the goal of REBT.
If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.
As the world’s foremost EDM and hip hop-influenced REBT psychotherapist—promoting content related to EDM, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.
At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!
Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW
References:
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