Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy is rooted in traditional psychoanalysis, and it draws from object relations, ego psychology, and self psychology. Its primary focus is to reveal the unconscious content and conflicts of one's psyche in an effort to alleviate intrapsychic tension. Internal representations of experiences are organized around interpersonal relations. It seeks to reduce symptoms and improve life through addressing the foundation and formation of psychological processes through psychological interpretation of mental and emotional processes. You and the therapist explore your emotions, thoughts, early-life experiences, beliefs, and patterns and you are helped to gain insight into your life and present-day problems. Recognizing recurring patterns can help you to see how you avoid distress or develop defense mechanisms (denial, repression, rationalization, etc.) to cope. This insight may allow you to begin changing those patterns. You are encouraged to speak freely about your emotions, desires, and fears, which may help reveal vulnerable feelings that have been pushed out of conscious awareness. Once vulnerable or painful feelings are processed, the defense mechanisms reduce or resolve. The therapeutic relationship is a key means to understanding and working through the relational difficulties which you have suffered in life. Life issues and dynamics will re-emerge in the context of the client-therapist relationship. The therapeutic relationship can demonstrate how you interact with your friends and loved ones. In addition, transference in therapy can show how early-life relationships affect you at present. Transference is the transferring of your feelings for a parent, for example, onto the therapist. This intimate look at interpersonal relationships can help you understand your part in relationship patterns. It may empower you to transform that dynamic. Trust in insight as critically important for success in therapy. Major techniques used by psychodynamic therapists include free association, dream interpretation, recognizing resistance, transference, working through painful memories and difficult issues, and building a strong therapeutic alliance.