What is Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and How Do I Know If It’s Right For Me?

Potential clients often ask me in our consultation appointment about my training and how I work as a therapist. As a recent graduate from the 3-year Psychodynamic Psychotherapy program at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, I have developed a rich understanding of how to work with clients that I believe goes far deeper than what I learned in my Master’s program.

While modalities such as CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy) can be very helpful in certain clinical situations, I have noticed they are less effective to help clients who are struggling with issues of the self and how they show up in their relationships. Teaching deep breathing exercises and cognitive reframing to clients can be helpful in anxiety management but does very little to change the way a person understands themselves. From where I sit, change is an inside job.

We know through infant studies that humans develop their brains and sense of self during childhood within the context of their caretaker relationships. It makes sense that in order to shift the foundation later in life and to help clients re-form a more robust, cohesive sense of self that we would need to recreate a situation where we could almost go back in time and pick up where things might have gone awry during development. In order to create this therapeutic situation, the therapist needs to be able to meet the client where they are and foster a level of attunement and empathy that would be reminiscent of an idealized parental relationship. Once this feeling of safety and containment has been achieved then a powerful relationship between therapist and client can take hold. The therapist may then be able to point out things that are outside the client’s awareness and reflect back to them how they are experienced by the therapist; an insight that often parallels how the client presents in other relationships in their life.

The other thing that is unique to psychoanalytic work is that there is an emphasis on helping the clients develop a sense of agency in their lives:

• no topic is off limits

• there is no manualized “agenda”

• the therapist is not regarded as an “expert”

The goal is for the client to make their own decisions and come to understand what is true for them. It is also ok and encouraged for the client to share how they experience the therapist – whether they are disappointing, annoying, or withholding—it is all “grist for the mill.” The client’s subjective experience is extremely important in this work and is allowed to be expressed and understood without shame. This freedom of expression and acceptance is often times discouraged in our parental relationships and for some clients, therapy is the one place where they can get to know their authentic selves without fear of judgment or recourse.

Another focus of psychoanalytic work is understanding and deeply exploring our feelings which are rooted in our childhood. When they are properly understood, our feelings can be used as a guide to tell us how we should respond in a given situation and they can also show us what is important to us.

Our culture often times discourages the expression of so-called negative feelings such as anger and sadness and many people have learned to repress these feelings. However, we know that repression only drives our feelings further underground where they can manifest in ways that are often detrimental to our relationships, our well-being and our physical health. As uncomfortable and as vulnerable as it can be, experiencing our true feelings in front of a therapist can be extremely healing and lead to a much deeper treatment.

Since the pandemic, the rise of remote work and with the introduction of artificial intelligence in our personal lives and work, our world has become increasingly isolated and less human-focused. I see a lot of clients suffering from not being truly seen or heard in this increasingly detached and inauthentic world. That is what inspired me to seek out psychoanalytic training.

With 130 years of time-tested theory and practice, psychoanalytic psychotherapy remains steadfast in its efforts to recapture and heal what makes us human through the power of deep understanding and our relationships. If you struggle with self-esteem issues, feel stuck and unfulfilled in your life, feel drained by people-pleasing and difficulty fostering authentic relationships, or just want to better understand yourself, psychoanalytic psychotherapy might be a helpful place to start. To book an appointment with one of our therapists you practices psychoanalytic therapy, let us know and reach out here.