My therapy approach

Psychodynamic or psychoanalytic therapy is a collaborative, experiential and evidence-based talk therapy that looks beneath the surface of your inner life and your relationships. Its aim, beyond symptom alleviation, is transformative change. While we’d consider the ways in which your past might inform your present, it is most importantly anchored in the here-and-and now. It is a process that uniquely attends to the relationship between the patient and the therapist. Therapy is a window into your life, where relevant themes and patterns are sure to emerge in real time. The more closely we can look at these things together, the more deeply we can understand them and more potential you’ll have the change them.

This will involve my open-minded and nonjudgemental listening, active curiosity and mutual reflection, efforts to make thoughtful observations and useful connections, empathetic challenging of patterns that might contribute to your distress, dedicated respect, and optimism about your potential.

It won’t involve advice, tools, homework or the like. While these can be helpful for certain people under certain circumstances, what we’re after is something deeper.

Many people who come to see me have already tried Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), or Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). Maybe these were helpful up to a certain point, but then plateaued—or maybe they didn’t move the dial. These are indicators that a psychodynamic approach could be worthwhile now.

<>

Consider the following “10 Vital Signs of Mental Health,” adapted from Nancy McWilliams, PhD, ABPN, as examples of what can be achieved:

1. Stronger, healthier, more trusting relationships

2. Increased sense of personal agency (to take control of your life; to be enabled to pursue your goals and shape your path)

3. More integrated and coherent experience of self and others (which tends to involve, e.g., deeper and more nuanced perspectives)

4. Self-esteem that is realistic and reliable (accurate perceptions of your strengths and weaknesses; self-compassion and self-acceptance)

5. Increased emotional regulation and resilience (feeling more steady, peaceful, grounded; better able to adapt and recover)

6. Ability to reflect on and understand the inner experience of self and others (greater senses of self- and other-awareness)

7. Greater ease in working interdependently (comfort and capacity to both be alone and be with others)

8. Increased presence, vitality, and capacity to play (engaging intentionally and enthusiastically with what interests you and brings you joy)

9. More capacity for forgiveness, gratitude, and acceptance

10. Adaptive and flexible defensives (effective ways of coping with and growing from stress and hardship)

<>

For more, here’s a jargon-free piece from Jonathan Shedler, PhD: “That Was Then, This Is Now: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy for the Rest of Us” He additionally writes a straightforward and incisive Substack on matters relevant to this therapy.