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Janice Lindsay-Hartz, Ph.D.
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What Is Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy?
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy helps people become more aware of how their minds work, so that they can make wise changes in their lives. With the help of a psychotherapist, who provides support and empathy, people come to understand more clearly why they think, feel and act the way they do. Through the process of psychotherapy, people gain insight into all sorts of habit patterns that affect the way they relate to others (from intimate others and family members to work colleagues), the way they react to situations, and their own internal thought and feeling patterns. With the help of a psychotherapist, people learn to become more aware of the stream of thoughts and feelings that affect how they relate to others, and how they feel internally. In therapy, people can start to explore the more hidden reasons for the ways they think, and the ways they relate to others. Not only do people gain more self-understanding, but then they are freer to make changes in their lives. People learn more about how their past is continuing to influence the present, even outside of their normal awareness. They learn to start connecting past to current difficulties. Greater awareness of these past influences can lead to the freedom to act and think in new and wiser ways. The increase in self-knowledge and emotional growth contributes to richer interpersonal relationships and a more effective use of talents and abilities. Self-esteem usually increases. Troubling symptoms which people experience (such as anxiety, depression, sabotaging one's own success, having affairs, repeated disappointments in personal relationships, choosing difficult partners, seeming lethargic, struggling with personal losses and transitions, feeling over-whelmed, over worrying) often provide clues to forces that are outside of normal awareness. Exploring the full range of such symptoms, and learning more about even their hidden aspects, provides leverage to begin to make helpful changes in life. Sometimes exploring dreams, and the stream of conscious thoughts which are always there in the background, helps people become more aware of how their mind and feelings work, and helps people make wise changes. Previously puzzling symptoms and incidents become more understandable. Over time, the troubling symptoms usually decrease or disappear; and more effective and healthy habit patterns are learned. Sometimes, people come to therapy because they know they have struggled with underlying feelings of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, or sexual or intimacy problems for most of their lives. Even though they may function fairly well on the surface, they know they could feel better. Through therapy people are able to gain a greater understanding of their issues, and to make changes to resolve them. Other times, people come to therapy when they stand at a crossroad in their lives, and are not sure what to do. (For example, "Should I stay or leave – my job, my relationship, etc.?") Although most people long to find a wise advisor who will simply tell them which path to take, therapy actually offers something a little different. The therapist helps patients enhance their understanding of each path at the crossroads, including the sometimes hidden meanings. Then patients become freer to use their own wisdom to choose which path to take, or to decide that a problem is not resolvable. Link to an article summarizing the scientific evidence for the effectiveness of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. |
