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Rose City Board member Nina Savelle-Rocklin, Psy.D., recently posted a description of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. If you missed it, check it out below:
“A common image of psychoanalysis involves Freud silently listening to a patient who reclines on a couch. Yet comparing Freudian analysis to contemporary psychoanalysis is akin to comparing a Model T Ford to a Tesla. They’re both cars, yet there are many, many differences. As with automobiles, the art and science of psychoanalysis has evolved considerably since its origins in the 20th century.
Psychoanalysis isn't just one single mode of therapy. It actually encompasses a range of theories, philosophies, and techniques. And these are theories of the mind as well as methods of therapy. The ultimate goal of analysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy is to help people live more freely and authentically by understanding why they behave in self-destructive ways or fail to act in their own best interests, and helping them create new ways of relating to themselves and others.
While psychotherapy mainly aims to relieve symptoms, psychoanalytic treatment looks deeper into self-defeating behaviors and views them as symptoms of deeper problems. It's like removing a weed - just yanking up the visible part won't get rid of the problem for good. You have to dig out the root.
Similarly, the "weed" in psychoanalysis is the symptom that brings a person into treatment, but the focus is on removing the underlying emotional roots. Like actual roots, these are hidden from us, underground in a sense, and buried in our unconscious minds. It's where things are unknown but still impacting beliefs, behaviors, and expectations. By digging out these roots, we transform our present.
Ultimately, psychoanalysis aims to help a person gain a deeper understanding of themselves and change the way they relate to themselves, others, and the world. In the work, analyst and patient identify how the past is still influencing the present, and then create new ways of being in the world, so that people can lead their most authentic and fulfilling lives.
The experience of psychoanalysis is deeply personal and transformative. It's like going on a journey with another person to investigate the past and transform the present. Analysts and patients work together like detectives of the mind to solve the mystery of what's causing current difficulties and to form a new paradigm for being and relating."
Rose City Center clinicians receive psychoanalytic oriented training from top analysts in the field. They incorporate their training into the therapeutic practice of providing depth oriented psychotherapy.
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