SERVICES
Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy
My Background and Approach
The foundation of my professional training lies in Clinical Social Work (LCSW, PhD). My formal analytic training was Freudian and I have spent many years of study on Kleinian Psychoanalysis, contemporary Kleinians, and the work of Wilfred Bion. Helping people accept and work through difficult feelings such as hate, envy, jealousy, opens up pathways to love differently and facilitates creativity. Keeping in mind the importance of separateness and difference, the development of an “inner voice,” autonomy, and owning strengths and limitations is an important aspect of the therapeutic process.
The psychotherapist makes use of the ‘here and now’ by exploring the patient’s inner experience and how it unfolds in daily life.
What’s the difference between psychoanalysis and therapy?
The most obvious difference between psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy is the intensity and frequency of sessions. In psychoanalysis, frequency is 3-5 times per week and psychoanalytic psychotherapy sessions are 1-2 times per week.
Psychoanalysis is a journey about discovering one’s own psychic truth and a long process of bereavement, if you will, mourning the disappointments, disillusionments , hurts, and betrayals of self and others. It is about learning how to recognize and become self-aware, a reflective process which opens up the vicissitudes of love and hate. Psychoanalysis is transformative and can be reparative.
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy is an insight-oriented approach. Treatment is aimed at reducing psychological suffering. It is based on the same principles as psychoanalysis and is less intensive.
What good is therapy?
Taking the time and effort to self-reflect, allowing for curiosity about what motivates behavior, accepting painful realities, examining relationships, learning new ways to handle conflict, breaking patterns that no longer work and making conscious choices in life and relationships: this is a gift you can give yourself and those close to you.
Talking and thinking with a professional may engender a sense of clarity and understanding and often fulfills a deep desire for people. To know one’s own mind, to develop an inner compass, to be able to choose freely without guilt, shame, or anxiety is liberating. Psychoanalysis and/or psychoanalytic psychotherapy helps you to experience life more deeply and love more fully. It helps one learn to enjoy more satisfying relationships, and to resolve painful conflicts. It gives a person the freedom to make different choices, to change, and to continue to grow. .
The therapeutic relationship can be life-changing, whatever stage of life you are in. Ultimately, the goal is awareness that facilitates reflection, reconciliation and letting go of the ties and behaviors that keep us from living freely. To know one’s own mind, to develop an inner compass, to be able to choose freely without guilt, shame, or anxiety is liberating.
Other benefits of psychotherapy and/or psychoanalysis is that people find that talking and thinking with a professional who listens may engender a sense of clarity, understanding and new coping strategies. Talking and feeling understood fulfills a deep desire for people.
Psychoanalysis and/or psychoanalytic psychotherapy helps you to experience life more deeply, enjoy more satisfying relationships, resolve painful conflicts. Its greatest gift is the freedom to make different choices, change and to continue to grow.