What is Psychodynamic Psychotherapy?
Psychodynamic psychotherapy helps you to understand how your past experiences and unconscious mind and impulses shape your current feelings and behaviour. When painful feelings and memories are too overwhelming for the conscious mind to process, we develop defences to keep them repressed and able to cope. However, this can, over time, begin to impact our mental and physical health negatively. As a Psychodynamic therapist, I will help you uncover, recognise, experience, and understand your deep-rooted feelings and how past experiences continue to impact present life. Ultimately, the process will help you to be able to live with your past instead of against it.
In psychodynamic work, the therapeutic relationship is vital. Having an experience with an accepting and trusting therapist encourages you to talk freely and openly about topics like your childhood and your relationship with primary caregivers. This can help you understand what you are feeling now, why you behave in a certain way, and how this affects your current relationships, both socially and professionally.
I will allow you to talk freely about whatever comes to mind. This is known as free association. We trust whatever comes up in a session is relevant and important, even if seemingly inconsequential.
Another key concept in the psychodynamic approach is transference. This is where a client redirects feelings they experienced in previous significant relationships or during childhood onto the therapist. Transference is a welcomed part of the work. It can help clients learn more about their feelings, behaviours, and actions and then resolve the feelings that originate from these relationships with the therapist in a safe and manageable way. This understanding will help you make healthier relationship choices and relate from the point of greater emotional awareness and understanding.
Based on 'Introduction to Psychotherapy: An Outline of Psychodynamic Principles and Practice' by Bateman et al. (2000) are:
- bringing the unconscious into consciousness
- exploring the impact of early life and childhood
- considering the conflict between different feelings and aspects of self
- uncovering 'defence mechanisms' which are used to avoid painful feelings and experiences
- exploring feelings and patterns in relationships with others, including within the therapeutic relationship
Psychodynamic psychotherapy is an evidence-based therapy, and the effects have been shown to continue long after the treatment has ended.
How I work:
My approach is one of deep listening to what you bring. I offer gentle and caring support coupled with the belief that I am a guide to your inner knowing and inherent ability to heal. I work collaboratively, not giving advice but offering alternative perspectives and possibilities, interpretations, and a sense of containment and emotional holding. This way of working is a slow process. I do not believe that sustainable change and healing can be achieved quickly and that it may be unsafe to attempt to do so. I follow the pace set by the client and trust that things will unfold and land when the time is right. This way of working requires commitment and patience from the client and the therapist.
I trained in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy at Birkbeck, University of London. This was a rigorous clinical, experiential, and academic training, during which I had the opportunity to work alongside the counselling team at Kings College, London.
Since completing training, I set up a private practice in Bloomsbury, London, where I worked until moving to East Sussex. I now work from the Wellington Centre, in Hastings.
Practicalities
If you are interested in working with me, I usually start by having a brief telephone conversation with you. This is for you to tell me more about what is happening. It also allows me to ask a few questions and to talk more about the way I work. If, after the call, you want to move forward, we will agree on a time for an initial assessment session, which will also allow us to determine if we would like to continue working together regularly.
I usually meet clients once per week, ideally at the same time each week. I generally work in a long-term, open-ended way, but I can also see clients on a short-term basis, in which case the work tends to be more focused and directive.
I may incorporate both Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Somatic Experiencing where appropriate.
My fee is based on a sliding scale depending on income, between £60 - £70 per 50-minute session.