On Psychoanalysis

A MEETING WITH THE UNCONSCIOUs…

Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy takes many different forms, though most share the belief that there are processes going on within us all the time that we are not aware of. Some stress the importance of your childhood on your adult life: of course this makes sense to an extent, and the way we learned about relationships from our parents and other people we encountered, as well as the traumas we suffered before we were able to make adult choices, does help to influence how we live now. But what sometimes gets lost is our ability to live lives which are different from what came before. Here I think psychoanalysis, psychology, literature and philosophy also teach us the ways in which our behaviour, interests, passing thoughts and dreams are often ahead of us in planning the next steps in our lives. Speaking about your dreams can also be a powerful way to speak about what troubles you in a freer form.

I see people who speak face to face and those who do so lying down, free from eye-contact, both in my consulting room and via the internet on Skype. For some, twice-weekly or more frequent sessions offer a chance to connect deeply with the issues being worked on (Freud saw patients for several months, four or five times a week). Lacanian psychoanalysis works with a more variable session length (normally between 35 and 80 minutes), where the analyst chooses where to end the session. This is a modality I am happy to offer on request. Otherwise I work to a regular 50 minute session. The initial consultation is free.