A New Home for Nightmare Treatment
Military personnel returning from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq show increasing rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and post-traumatic nightmares. Media coverage of these two vexing mental health conditions is also intensifying and raising public awareness about the need for more effective therapeutic options. With growing attention focused on patients...
Her car is racing at a terrifying speed through the streets of a large city, and something gruesome, something with giant eyeballs, is chasing her, closing in fast.
It was a dream, of course, and after Emily Gurule, a 50-year-old high school teacher, related it to Dr. Barry Krakow, he did not ask her to unpack its symbolism. He simply told her to think of a new one.
“In your mind, with thinking...
The information on nightmaretreatment.com is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a patient/site visitor and his/her physician.
NightmareTreatment.com is the Official Website for Maimonides International Nightmare Treatment Center, providing treatment for Chronic Nightmares, Disturbing Dreams and Related Sleep Disorders. More...
Barry Krakow, M.D., Sleep Disorders Specialist, Certified by the American Board of Sleep Medicine.
Nightmare therapy may put chronic nightmares to rest.
"Studies show that 70% to 80% of people who try IRT get significant relief," says Barry Krakow, MD, director of the Maimonides International Nightmare Treatment Center in Albuquerque, N.M. He's one of the researchers who worked on the JAMA study and the author of four books on sleep medicine, including Sound Sleep, Sound Mind.
Yael Levy recalls having chronic nightmares as far back as elementary school, when she was living in Israel. The grandchild of Holocaust survivors, she says her dreams were filled with images of suffering and death.
In one recurrent nightmare, Levy was trapped in a concentration camp, facing death. In another, she was drowning in deep water. At their worst, the nightmares occurred on an almost weekly basis, leaving her jittery and desperately fatigued.
"I would wake up so terrified that I was afraid to go back to sleep," Levy says. "And the bad feelings were hard to shake. I would continue to feel frightened throughout the next day."
Barry Krakow, MD is a board certified internist and sleep disorders specialist who has spent over 30 years in medicine in the fields of internal, emergency, addiction and sleep medicine. He has conducted more than two decades of research in the treatment of chronic nightmares and disturbing dreams at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine (1988-1999) and the Sleep & Human Health Institute (2000-current).
Dr. Krakow graduated magna cum laude from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He was residency trained and board certified in internal medicine and also has ten years of clinical work in emergency medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society and is the former medical director of University Hospital Sleep Disorders Center.
Dr. Krakow has published two books, Insomnia Cures and his most recent, Sound Sleep, Sound Mind, is the first book of its kind to focus on mental, emotional and physical causes to sleep disturbances. Dr. Krakow and his wife, Jessica Kohr-Krakow have also published Turning Nightmares into Dreams, an innovated self-help, audio series and workbook to eliminate bad dreams.
Listen to the interview here:
Dr. Krakow is the medical director of Maimonides Sleep Arts & Sciences, Ltd, in Albuquerque, NM as well as the principle investigator of the Sleep and Human Health Institute, a non-profit research facility. Also, you can find information about his upcoming workshops on his Web sites, which include www.sleeptreatment.com http://www.nightmaretreatment.com/.
