WHAT IS PSYCHOANALYIS ?
Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin, Psy.D. breaks down psychoanalysis and how it can benefit you.
What exactly is psychoanalysis?
. . . and what makes it different from other types of therapy?
Many people when they hear psychoanalysis imagine Freud silently listening to a patient on a couch. Comparing Freud to contemporary psychoanalysis is like comparing a Model T Ford to a Tesla. They are both cars — yet there are many, many differences. As with automobiles, the art and science of psychoanalysis has evolved in the last 100 years.
Psychoanalysis is also known as depth psychology and it isn't just one single mode of therapy. It actually encompasses a range of theories, philosophies and techniques. These are theories of the mind as well as methods of therapy.
The ultimate goal of psychoanalytic psychotherapy is to help people live more freely and authentically by understanding why they behave in self-destructive ways or why they sometimes fail to act in their own best interests and then help them create new ways of relating to themselves, to others, and to the world.
While mainstream psychotherapy mainly aims to relieve symptoms, depth psychology, psychoanalysis — it goes deeper. Think about it like emotional gardening. In a real garden, if you simply yank up a weed, it will grow back. In order to get rid of that weed for good, you have to dig out the root.
The weed in psychoanalysis is whatever brings you into treatment, where we focus on removing the underlying emotional root causes of whatever is going on with you. And like actual roots, these are often hidden from us. They are underground in a sense, buried in our unconscious mind. What is hidden from us — or unconscious — still impacts our beliefs, behaviors, and expectations of the world.
But by digging them out, uprooting them for good, we truly transform our present.
The experience of psychoanalysis is deeply personal, it is transformative, and it is collaborative. The analysts and the patient work together like detectives of the mind to solve the mystery of what's causing the current difficulties and and then to create a new paradigm for being and relating — so you can lead your most authentic and fulfilled life.
If this is something you're interested in, please call or email Rose City Center for more information,
We’re here to help.