Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy is psychotherapy which is based on many of the principles of psychoanalysis. It is less intense in its scope and practice, meaning that you meet less often with the therapist and the goals are usually more specific and focused. The intention in this kind of work is to look more intently into your thinking, feelings, and behaviors to understand deeper meanings and motivations around these specific issues. Through understanding these deeper meanings and motivations you begin to find a deeper understanding of yourself; and as you understand yourself better, you change little by little, which somehow adds up to the issues in your life-changing too, usually for the better.

Very often there is a focus on the workings of the unconscious mind, which is of course, unconscious and not easily known. Looking into the workings of the unconscious is not a simple matter and requires patience, determination, and willingness to look into difficult and sometimes undesirable aspects of oneself. To approach the unconscious mind, there is a need for intensity, which usually means meeting at least twice a week, if not more often.

This kind of therapy is often helpful to those who have been working on their own for some time to change various aspects of themselves but have run into a block in their progress. They often feel stuck, finding that their intentions to change never seem to work and old behaviors, feelings, and thinking return despite many attempts to modify them. This kind of therapy often takes months to years to achieve the goal of modifying the “issues” or aspects that are the goals of treatment.