Is psychoanalytic therapy the right solution for me ?

                About suffering, they were never wrong,

                The Old Masters: how well they understood

                Its human position; how it takes place

               While someone else is eating or opening a

               window or just walking dully along.

                        W.H. Auden.

                                Musée des Beaux Arts

                                December 1938

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy offers an entirely confidential setting
in which to explore and work through one’s difficulties

Psychoanalytic therapy is a treatment for relieving mental distress. It is often known as the talking cure because its technique involves no requirement for action by either the patient or therapist.

Psychoanalytic therapy is based on the idea that much of our behaviour, thoughts and feelings are regulated by the unconscious part of our mind. By inviting individual clients to talk in a secure and confidential environment, the therapist helps them to reveal unconscious needs, motivations, wishes and memories in order to gain greater conscious control over their lives.  

What does the therapist do?

The major function of the therapist is to listen carefully and attentively to the client in order to understand him and facilitate communication.  The therapist uses his intelligence and his feelings to gain verbal and non-verbal clues to the client’s problems. With the help and cooperation of the client, the therapist first attempts to understand disguised communications, and then transform them into information that is useful to the client.  

Who can benefit from psychotherapy?

Depression and anxiety are the most common complaints for people seeking therapeutic help. But just as no two individuals are the same, so their experiences will be subtly different. This means that the question whether or not psychotherapy is the right treatment will depend more on the individual and the way they think and relate to their problems, than on the nature of the problem itself. Not everyone seeking therapy can articulate precisely why they feel the need for it. They may experience a general lack of well-being, or simply have a desire for greater self-knowledge.

However, the list below indicates the range of difficulties that may be present:

• Anxiety, stress, panic attacks.

• Depression, irritability.

• Suicidal feelings.

• Eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia nervosa.

• Sexuality and gender.

• Effects of abuse, whether emotional, physical or sexual.

• Family and relationships.

• Pregnancy and parenting.

• Difficulty in incorporating feelings of loss or separation such as those evoked by bereavement,
  divorce or redundancy.
   

How long does it last?

It all depends on the client’s wishes and needs. Some people may just wish to deal quickly with a specific issue or new circumstance in their lives, and as little as six sessions may help individuals to clarify their thoughts and feelings, to come to terms with events, or to give them a new impetus or direction in life. Some people, on the other hand, feel ready and willing to embark on a really long-term and in-depth therapy, reflecting their determination to get to the root of long-standing problems. An average therapy for adults lasts about two years, at the rate of one, two or three sessions a week.

What about Children?

The trusting therapeutic relationship is also fundamental to working analytically with children. Faced with stressful circumstances children’s feelings can become overwhelming and may lead to a range of different symptoms, including fears, disturbances in sleeping or eating, or in relating to others. In the context of the secure therapeutic relationship, the child will gradually begin to express himself through play, drawing or talking. The therapist will slowly introduce the child to the underlying fears which he may have been unable to express – often because of unconscious feelings of guilt or shame. Much of the process of recovery comes through the child realising that nothing terrible comes from his or her “bad” thoughts or wishes, and that the fear, guilt or shame is largely unnecessary. A therapist may also help parents identify unconscious fears or conflicts – often relating to their own childhood - which may now be having an effect on their relationships with their children.

What about couples and Families?

The poet, John Donne, famously wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself…”. This very simple but fundamental idea is at the root of couple and family therapy. Though it may appear that only one member of the family is having difficulties, the whole family is affected, and the reactions, thoughts, feelings and behaviours of each individual member will feed into the way that the family unit functions, so that the perceived problem is either alleviated or exacerbated. Therapy can help each member of a couple or a family to understand and express his or her own feelings, and to disentangle feelings that stir up echoes from the past from those that are immediately evoked in the family context. Each family has its own - partially unconscious - script which members can be helped to recognise so that they can develop new strategies for relating to each other more positively and creatively.

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