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Is
psychoanalytic therapy the right solution for me ?
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About suffering, they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While
someone else is eating or opening a
window
or just walking dully along.
W.H. Auden
Musée des Beaux Arts
December 1938
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Psychoanalytic
psychotherapy offers an entirely confidential setting
in which to explore
and work through one’s difficulties
Psychoanalytic
therapy is a treatment for relieving mental distress. It is often known as the
talking cure because its technique involves no requirement for action by
either the patient or therapist. Psychoanalytic
therapy is based on the idea that much of our behaviour, thoughts and feelings
are regulated by the unconscious part of our mind. By inviting individual
clients to talk in a secure and confidential environment, the therapist helps
them to reveal unconscious needs, motivations, wishes and memories in order to
gain greater conscious control over their lives.
What
does the therapist do?
The
major function of the therapist is to listen carefully and attentively to the
client in order to understand him and facilitate communication.
The therapist uses his intelligence and his feelings to gain verbal and
non-verbal clues to the client’s problems. With the help and cooperation of
the client, the therapist first attempts to understand disguised communications,
and then transform them into information that is useful to the client.
Who
can benefit from psychotherapy?
Depression
and anxiety are the most common complaints for people seeking therapeutic help.
But just as no two individuals are the same, so their experiences will be subtly
different. This means that the question whether or not psychotherapy is the
right treatment will depend more on the individual and the way they think and
relate to their problems, than on the nature of the problem itself. Not everyone
seeking therapy can articulate precisely why they feel the need for it. They may
experience a general lack of well-being, or simply have a desire for greater
self-knowledge.
However,
the list below indicates the range of difficulties that may be present:
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Anxiety, stress, panic attacks
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Depression, irritability
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Suicidal feelings
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Eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia nervosa
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Sexuality
and gender
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Effects of abuse, whether emotional, physical or sexual
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Family and relationships
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Pregnancy and parenting
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Difficulty in incorporating
feelings of loss or separation such as those evoked by bereavement,
divorce or redundancy.
How
long does it last? It all depends on the client’s
wishes and needs. Some people may just wish to deal quickly with a specific
issue or new circumstance in their lives, and as little as six sessions may help
individuals to clarify their thoughts and feelings, to come to terms with
events, or to give them a new impetus or direction in life. Some people, on the
other hand, feel ready and willing to embark on a really long-term and in-depth
therapy, reflecting their determination to get to the root of long-standing
problems. An average therapy for adults lasts about two years, at the rate of
one, two or three sessions a week.
What
about Children?
The
trusting therapeutic relationship is also fundamental to working analytically
with children. Faced with stressful circumstances children’s feelings can
become overwhelming and may lead to a range of different symptoms, including
fears, disturbances in sleeping or eating, or in relating to others. In the
context of the secure therapeutic relationship, the child will gradually begin
to express himself through play, drawing or talking. The therapist will slowly
introduce the child to the underlying fears which he may have been unable to
express – often because of unconscious feelings of guilt or shame. Much of the
process of recovery comes through the child realising that nothing terrible
comes from his or her “bad” thoughts or wishes, and that the fear, guilt or
shame is largely unnecessary. A therapist may also help parents identify
unconscious fears or conflicts – often relating to their own childhood - which
may now be having an effect on their relationships with their children.
What
about couples and Families?
The
poet, John Donne, famously wrote, “No man is an island, entire of
itself…”. This very simple but fundamental idea is at the root of couple and
family therapy. Though it may appear that only one member of the family is
having difficulties, the whole family is affected, and the reactions, thoughts,
feelings and behaviours of each individual member will feed into the way that
the family unit functions, so that the perceived problem is either alleviated or
exacerbated. Therapy can help each member of a couple or a family to understand
and express his or her own feelings, and disentangle feelings that stir up
echoes from the past from those that are immediately evoked in the family
context. Each family has its own - partially unconscious
- script which members can be helped to recognise so that they can develop new
strategies for relating to each other more positively and creatively.
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