How does Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy work?

This is no small task. It takes time and effort to become comfortable enough to stay in close contact with your own mind, and to share it openly with another person. Meeting frequently is essential for this process to unfold. All of us, in different ways, have mental processes that protect us from painful realities. These defenses, often outside our awareness, can block us from seeing things as they truly are. As these defenses come into focus and feel safer to examine, they begin to loosen, and therapy moves more freely. As the defenses weaken in treatment, they also weaken in your outside life, where they have inevitably been present as well—limiting emotional freedom, straining relationships, and draining energy.

One key reason psychodynamic psychotherapy is so unique and effective is its focus on what is happening in the present moment, in the therapy session. Together we will observe your thoughts, feelings, and relational patterns as they unfold in real time. One important way these dynamics appear is through transference — the ways old patterns of relating can repeat themselves with the therapist, just as they do in other important relationships. In our sessions, we can see how experiences from your past shape the way you feel, think, and relate in the present, both within your own mind and in your relationship with me. This focus on present-moment experience and the opportunity to observe it as it unfolds is absent in other forms of psychotherapy, and is a key reason why this form of treatment is so comprehensive and why its benefits are long-lasting.