Psychoanalysis
As in most areas of life, the benefits of self-discovery and growth increase greatly with more active personal involvement. Psychoanalysis is a unique form of intensive psychotherapy with sessions scheduled 3-5 times per week, typically making use of the traditional analytic couch. The process of psychoanalysis depends on a safe, confidential relationship with a trusted analyst, a relationship that allows emotional dilemmas to come to light in all their richness and complexity. Within this deeper relationship, we work together to grasp the deeper meanings of your experience through exploration of emotional reactions, thoughts, memories, dreams, images, and bodily sensations. The frequency of sessions offers a unique opportunity to access deeper layers of personal experience and to truly process them for the first time. Usually people find using the analytic couch allows them to speak more freely and become more open to themselves, thereby increasing the potential for self-knowledge and personal change.
Psychoanalysis fosters profound personal development and increased freedom from unsatisfying and painful modes of living. While built upon the pioneering work of Freud, modern and innovative analysts have accepted that no single theory fully accounts for the complexities of being human and living a life. Contemporary psychoanalysis has continued to evolve and improve its effectiveness by integrating new findings from attachment theory, infant, child and adult development, and, more recently, neuroscience. Psychoanalysis is practiced internationally and is now in one of its most advanced, lively, and creative stages in its 100 years of practice.
In my experience, psychoanalysis, more than other forms of treatment, offers the potential for the most enduring personal change possible. In addition, the process and experience of a personal psychoanalysis tends to build capacities for self-observation, self-reflection, and self-inquiry which bring benefits long after the termination of psychoanalysis.