What to expect: Towards a deeper understanding.
PSYCHOANALYTICAL
PSYCHOTHERAPY
Psychoanalysis is form of talking therapy that takes a long term view of changes in human personality and relationships. The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud taught that the unconscious can teach us much about our desires and fears if we can access them through free-association, dream analysis and interpretation. The practise has developed considerably in the 100 years since Freud, and therapy is now informed by the work of Winnicott, Fairbairn, Lacan and many others in assisting the client in taking steps forward in self awareness and self-empowerment. Modern psychoanalytical psychotherpy may take place face-to-face or with the client making use of a couch.
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"The unexamined life is not worth living", is a famous dictum apparently uttered by Socrates at his trial for impiety. Perhaps this goes a little far, however as humans we search for meaning often failing to understand that our lives are full of meaning. Psychoanalysis seeks to unpack the meaning in our lives and to lift the elements of history and truth that we may have repressed along the way; repression that may lead to us to suffer emotionally, psychologically and physically. Psychoanalysis is so much an investigation; a search for crime scenes in our past; scenes we perhaps never understood but somehow have affected our behaviour.
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The clients safety always takes precedence because change can be challenging. However, with the increase in awareness, and access to previously denied sources of mental and emotional energy, the client is able to make choices not previously available, often relieving trauma and symptoms along the way.
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