Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy
Most people who reach out are not concerned with the difference between psychotherapy and psychoanalysis at the outset — they simply seek treatment. Both are offered here, and the right form of the work often develops over time.
How Sessions Work
The unique invitation of psychoanalytic work begins with the guideline to speak as freely as possible, to say whatever comes without censoring. In practice this is never perfectly possible, but it still provides a context of freedom and curiosity — a chance to say things that are usually held back in everyday life. This often includes feelings and thoughts about the ongoing work itself. Since no one can endlessly speak without pausing, the moments when free association pauses are often clues to something important to explore.
Conscious and Unconscious Patterns
We find that even the most seemingly irrational patterns are rooted in unconscious attempts at healing that have been overgeneralized. Obsessive rituals that seem meaningless, or emotional fixations that come out of nowhere, are far from meaningless — they are attempts to regain control or repair early trauma. Emotions have their own logic, which must be understood on their own terms.
Far from meaningless.
Frequency and Depth
Weekly sessions are the minimum for psychotherapy to gain traction and build the work over time.
Weekly psychotherapy
For those wishing to work more intensively, multiple sessions a week shift the focus to inner work, moving past simply reporting the events of the week.
More intensive psychoanalysis
What Does a Psychoanalyst Do?
Psychoanalytic listening requires a unique combination of active attention combined with an ability to relax and avoid speaking for the sake of social comfort — or out of anxiety, inexperience, or the need to appear smart or helpful. These skills cannot be taught from a book; they are developed only through experience over many years.
What Change Can Look Like
Patients often begin to notice a decrease in self-critical thoughts early in the work. With ongoing therapy, patients typically report a greater sense of connection to themselves — sometimes felt as a "structural change" allowing one to meet challenges with greater confidence in one's own intuitive ability.
Psychoanalysis is not a directive approach that tells you what decisions to make. It places faith in your own inherent wisdom and your ability to reconnect to the source of your creative potential.