Psychodynamic Therapy

A Psychodynamic approach enables you to understand more fully how your early life experiences inform your present behaviors, feelings, and patterns.

I have had training in psychoanalytic/psychodynamic psychotherapy and years of supervision with psychoanalytic practitioners. Most of my work is through this lens, to comprehensively get a picture of you, so I know what approaches to take in your treatment.

I have studied Psychodynamic Theory since I was an undergraduate when I took a German Literature class where we read Freud in chronological order. My graduate studies had a psychodynamic emphasis.

I believe psychodynamic theory explains the power of the therapy process. By increasing awareness about who we are, how we interact with our world, and why we do the things we do, we discover patterns of relating to ourselves and others and explore the purpose of these patterns. This awareness empowers us to have choices over who we are and how we relate to others. Psychodynamic therapy allows us to get to the root of what is going on to create lasting change.

Psychodynamic therapy focuses on resolving inner conflict, exploring the impact of early life experiences, and increasing understanding of unconscious experiences. We are trained in various dimensions of psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy, including relational therapy and interpersonal therapy. These psychodynamic treatments also include a specific emphasis on how the relationship between therapist and client can reflect challenges in the client's life, and serve as a vessel for change.

Some parts of ourselves are hidden from our own awareness and become apparent only in the ways we relate to others: the impact we have on them, how we engage them, what seems to come up again and again. Because of this, I use the relationship we build as a window into your world–and as an agent of change in your life. With greater awareness of the underlying habits, patterns, and motivations that direct our lives, the greater your agency, choice, and freedom.

Psychodynamic therapy is focused on exploring how your past has impacted your present and future.

Psychodynamic therapy explores the patterns and cycles that have repeated in your life, including patterns of thoughts and feelings. Together, we work to understand these cycles that you may feel trapped by. With that understanding, a path to peace and freedom opens up through self-reflection and self-compassion.

Psychodynamic therapy gives us an opportunity to trace the roots of coping strategies that may not serve you well anymore, even though they likely did at one time. We investigate your patterns with non-judgmental curiosity. A psychodynamic perspective gives us a lens to look through, with the help of memories and dreams, to sort out what is happening in your life now and what you want it to look like moving forward. I am trained in psychodynamic theory through Northwestern University.

Why psychodynamic/analytic therapy? The here and now psychotherapy relationship opens a stunning window into past, present, and future; into the deep wisdom of the unconscious; and into a creative flexibility that brings more and more wholesomeness, freedom, intimacy, and flourishing of the soul. I have doctoral and postdoctoral training in various contemporary analytic approaches, and I practice from a liberatory, feminist, relational stance.

Psychodynamic therapy involves facilitation a deeper understanding of one's emotions and behaviors. It increases a client’s self-awareness and grows their understanding of the influence of the past on present behavior. It allows clients to examine unresolved conflicts and symptoms that arise from past experiences and explore how they are manifesting themselves in current events, relationships, and behaviors.

Psychodynamic therapy puts emphases on the psychological cause of emotional pain. Self-reflection and self-examination are its major focus, relying on the bond between the therapist and patient as its main tool. While it aims to alleviate ones negative symptoms, most importantly, its goal is helping people to live balanced, more satisfied lives.

I am an eclectic therapist and draw on multiple approaches to provide therapy tailored to each patient's needs and priorities, with a focus on trauma healing, existential therapy, psychodynamic/attachment therapy, and liberation psychology.

Humans are amazing! How we make meaning of the world grows out of our core beliefs. Our core beliefs are everything we are told and experience, directly or indirectly, starting from the earliest point possible including our attachment stance.

I make use of psychodynamic therapy interventions to deep dive into clients' pasts and experiences and help form understanding and insight about current feelings, behaviors, and patterns. This can be used to increase self awareness and growth, as well as instigate behavioral change over time.

Psychodynamic therapy rests on two core assumptions: past experiences inform present-day functioning, and many of our behaviors are influenced by unconscious motives.

I trained under psychodynamic clinicians and have a strong developmental trauma focus in my practice. I strongly believe that most people carry the experiences and relationships dynamics they experienced during childhood into their adults. Sometimes we need support in making these connections and developing new patterns.

I utilize psychodynamic interventions in session to get to a deeper place of exploration of past relationships and experiences and to identify patterns in thought and behaviors.