How do psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy work?
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy tends to be longer term, as it aims to address problems at depth, and to make changes in ways of relating to others.
Much can be achieved in once-weekly sessions of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. This frequency of work can help by understanding the way in which external issues resonate within the relationship with the therapist, and help illuminate unconscious dilemmas. It can be useful for some people to work more intensively, i.e. twice, three or four times a week. Such intensity offers an opportunity to work more closely within the relationship with the therapist, as this can enable things to change for the person at a more fundamental level. For example, by working closely with your therapist, anxieties and emotions are experienced in an alive way and can be more amenable to change.
Are psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy always long term?
Working long term is the usual practice for this more intensive approach. It is helpful to think of the work as beginning a significant relationship in your life, which will last for several years.
Some people come into therapy as part of a training experience as personal therapy is central to the training of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapists.
