Psychodynamic Therapy
Understand yourself on a deeper level and uncover how your past is shaping your thoughts, relationships, and behaviors today.
Psychodynamic therapy is a form of talk therapy that explores how your past experiences influence your unconscious beliefs and conscious behaviors. By building a trusting bond with your therapist, you’ll gain newer insight into how your past thoughts and feelings shape who you are today.
This process of self-discovery can boost your self-esteem and confidence, improve your relationships, curtail harmful habits, and clarify what’s causing your emotional distress. You’ll start to understand yourself in ways you didn’t notice before.
Psychodynamic therapy is an effective treatment for many mental health conditions, including:
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Anxiety
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Attachment disorders
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Chronic illness
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Major depression
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Eating disorders
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Personality disorders
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Trauma
It can be used as a standalone treatment, or in conjunction with medications or other types of psychotherapy.
Benefits of Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic therapy can reduce the severity of symptoms of certain mental health conditions, improve your relationships, and increase your self-awareness so you can grow emotionally. It’s known to make a long-lasting impact, even after you finish seeing your therapist. You’ll walk away from treatment with newer insight that changes how you see yourself and leads to healthier thoughts and behaviors in the future.
How does Psychodynamic Therapy work?
You and your therapist have open-ended talks. Your therapist listens carefully while you say whatever’s on your mind and occasionally guides you to explore certain topics, feelings, or experiences from your past.
During your sessions, your therapist will partner with you to:
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Work through bad experiences. By talking about it and “letting it out,” you’ll be able to heal and stop it from interfering with your life.
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Express and process emotions. You know that painful experience you’ve been avoiding? The act of avoiding is the real source of distress.
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Learn more about yourself. The more you explore, the more you understand about why you think, feel, and act the way you do. This is important for identifying and breaking out of ineffective coping mechanisms.
What techniques are used in Psychodynamic Therapy?
Your therapist may use several different techniques. You won’t necessarily know their names or notice them happening, but they’re all important. Techniques include:
Free association. You’ll be encouraged to express anything you want, including thoughts, feelings, or memories, and just see where this takes you. Eventually, you’ll probably start uncovering unconscious beliefs or feelings that affect your behavior. As the old saying goes, all roads lead to Rome.
Dream analysis. Dreams are full of meaningful symbols that represent hidden thoughts or emotions you may not realize you’re experiencing when you’re awake.
Transference and countertransference. You might notice yourself feeling a certain way toward your therapist. These feelings are actually about other people in your life (transference). Your therapist might feel certain emotions about you, too (countertransference). Basically, the client-therapist relationship becomes a stand-in for other relationships in your life. Talking about these feelings in the moment helps you recognize your relationship patterns.
Defense Mechanism Identification. Your mind tries to protect you from uncomfortable emotions because, well, they’re uncomfortable. But defenses like denial or avoidance can manifest in unhealthy ways. Recognizing this helps you face uncomfortable feelings in healthier ways.
Past and Present Connection. You’ll explore how early life experiences shape who you are and how you relate to others.
Interested in learning more? Book a complimentary consultation to see if Psychodynamic Therapy is right for you!
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