Psychoanalytic Therapy

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy draws on theories and practices of psychoanalysis. It is a therapeutic process which helps patients understand and resolve their problems by increasing awareness of their inner world and its influence over relationships both past and present.

Typically, psychoanalytic psychotherapists wait for you to talk. This can feel like silence, but it important to remember that there are no expectations; in your sessions you will be encouraged to talk and reflect freely and to look deeper into your problems and worries.

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy aims to help people with psychological disorders, or simply existential worry and pain, to understand and change what are often complex, deep-seated, and unconsciously based emotional and relationship problems. It can help you discuss feelings you have about yourself and other people, particularly family and those close to you. As with all therapeutic endeavours, the relationship with the therapist is a crucial element.

The therapist offers a confidential and private setting which facilitates a process where unconscious patterns of your inner world can become reflected in the relationship with your therapist (transference). This process helps you gradually to identify these patterns and, in becoming conscious of them, to develop the capacity to understand and change them.

Your therapist also tries to understand and point out particular difficulties in talking or thinking about certain things. Although we know that it’s helpful to talk, we also know it’s not always easy. It’s important to understand what might get in the way.

Occasionally, psychoanalytical therapy might be of short duration but generally speaking it is best considered as a long-term treatment involving considerable commitment on both sides .