Psychoanalytic Treatment
1. What Is Psychoanalytic Treatment?
1. What Is Psychoanalytic Treatment?
Psychoanalysis looks to help the patient, through a therapeutic relationship, be able to understand themselves better from the “inside out.” So much of the mind is not conscious and can wield an extraordinary amount of power in destructive and limiting ways that present themselves through symptoms, dysfunction, pain and distress.
Psychoanalytic treatment looks at a patient’s natural strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes a particular behavior or adaptation that worked earlier is no longer productive and is contributing to the presenting problem. Understanding how a patient has shifted off their developmental path and returning them to it is a particularly psychoanalytic perspective. In this way, symptoms and behaviors are observed, understood and tracked, but, in addition, the emotions and ideas and fantasies associated with them can be discovered and addressed. Rather than distinguishing between the brain as the biological part and the mind as the psychological part, modern psychoanalytic research and theory and practice looks to link the two..
2. How does psychoanalytic treatment work?
2. How does psychoanalytic treatment work?
As the unique patient-analyst relationship develops over time, both participants are able to turn their attention towards the products of the patient’s mind — past and present emotions, stories, dreams, and creative endeavors in the form of play, art and work. Both the details of the content and how these elements are communicated are examined in a nonjudgmental manner within the shared therapeutic space. Although psychotropic medications might or might not be used to target particular symptom clusters, their use and meaning are integrated into the treatment as a whole.
3. How can psychoanalytic treatment work for babies, children, adolescents and adults?
3. How can psychoanalytic treatment work forbabies, children, adolescents and adults?
No matter the age or capacities of a particular patient, analytic treatment uses the analyst as a tool—to receive emotional, verbal and nonverbal communications and then to process them and reflect back in words and emotions. The presence of the analyst is like putting a toe in running water—it allows for an experience of the flow but also a disruption of the flow. The intervention then provides an opportunity for more sensitive and specific adjustments that can lead to a different therapeutic experience for the patient. Over time, the brain and mind shift with decreased symptoms, the development of greater emotional range and tolerance, and increased verbal and other expressions that can lead to further changes in relationships and functioning outside of the analytic space.
.
4. Why does psychoanalytic treatment require frequent sessions?
4. Why does psychoanalytic treatment require frequent sessions?
To develop an effective analytic treatment setting, both the analyst and the patient need to settle into the relationship and develop a mutually shared safe space where a common language, rhythm and routine sets the stage for the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind to express themselves. Some patients find that lying on the analytic couch fosters this experience; others find that sitting and facing a certain direction is helpful. In younger children and many adolescents, play therapy is the most effective tool towards therapeutic change. Frequent sessions allow for greater therapeutic momentum, continuity of themes, depth of understanding of the emotions and associations and more stable and permanent results, no matter what the age or diagnosis of the patient.
"In my work as a developmental pediatrician, I have seen many patients transform from high risk children to thriving adolescents and young adults thanks to the role of psychoanalysis in Dr. Donner's capable hands."
Deborah Rubin, M.D., F.A.A.P.