Psychoanalysis is really a way of thinking...a lens or perspective that we can look through, but when people ask what psychoanalysis is, they usually want to know about the treatment process and the relationship to the therapist.

Psychoanalysis is a treatment modality based on the understanding that we are often unaware of many of the factors that determine our emotions and behaviors. These unconscious factors may create feelings of unhappiness or distress. Sometimes this shows up in the form of recognizable symptoms and at other times as troubling personality traits, difficulties in work or in love relationships, or disturbances in mood and self-esteem. Often, we may find ourselves repeating the same patterns throughout life, feeling stuck and at a loss of how to change them. Because of these unconscious forces, the advice of friends and family, reading self-help books, or even the most determined efforts of will, often fail to provide relief.

In psychoanalysis, we are able to begin to recognize how these unconscious factors affect our current relationships and patterns of behavior, and we can trace them back to their historical origins. As we engage in this process we begin to see how they have changed and developed over time, and eventually learn to embody more efficient ways of dealing with the realities of adult life. 

Analysis is an intimate partnership, where you have the opportunity to become aware of the underlying sources of  difficulties- not simply intellectually -but emotionally, by re-experiencing them within the context of our relationship. Typically, the patient comes three to five times per week, lies on a couch, and attempts to say everything that comes to mind. These conditions create a setting that allows for the emergence of aspects of the mind not usually accessible via other methods. As you freely speak, hints of the unconscious sources of current difficulties gradually begin to appear — in certain repetitive patterns of behavior, in the topics that feel hard to talk about, and in the ways that you relate to me as the analyst.

My job, as the analyst, is to help facilitate this process by helping to bring further awareness to the unconscious factors at play. Your job, as the patient, is to refine, correct, reject, and add further thoughts and feelings. During the years that an analysis takes place, you'll grapple with new insights, going over them again and again while experiencing them in daily life, in fantasies, and in dreams. This is an expected part of the process. We will join in efforts not only to modify discouraging or difficult life patterns and remove uncomfortable symptoms, but also to expand the freedom to work, to love, and to play.

Eventually, you will experience that your behavior, relationships, and sense of self will have transformed in deep and abiding ways.