Image Rehearsal Therapy (IRT) May Help Some Patients With Nightmares.

USA Today(11/9, http://tinyurl.com/Image-Rehearsal-Therapy, Painter) reports that a treatment “called imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT)” is “a form of cognitive behavioral therapy” focusing “on changing harmful thought patterns” that is used to help patients with nightmares. During treatment, “patients meet with a therapist a few times,” learning that “while nightmares may be triggered by trauma and might even be useful at first, nightmares that persist for months are like bad habits and can be unlearned.” Eventually, patients learn to “rewrite the script for” a particular “nightmare any way” they wish, then are “asked to practice that rewritten script repeatedly,” thereby “fully engaging” their “waking imagination” to help nightmares to go away.

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