Lacanian Psychoanalysis
Sometimes we seek help because something specific has become difficult: a relationship, anxiety, a loss, or a decision we cannot seem to make. Sometimes the difficulty is harder to name. Life may look reasonably good from the outside, yet something feels unsettled. We may find ourselves repeating situations we thought we had left behind, or wondering why knowing what we “should” do hasn’t helped us do it.
Psychoanalysis offers a place to speak about these experiences and investigate what is at work in them.
What happens in sessions?
You are invited to speak as freely as you can, including about things that seem embarrassing, contradictory, trivial, or unrelated. There is no requirement to arrive with a clear agenda or a neatly organized account of your life. Difficulty finding words can itself become part of the work.
The analyst listens closely and intervenes through questions, observations, or by drawing attention to something in what you have said. Silence can also leave room for something less familiar to emerge.
The relationship with the analyst matters, too. Expectations about being understood, judged, approved of, or disappointed can become present in sessions. Exploring those experiences can help bring recurring ways of relating into view.
How is this different from psychotherapy?
Psychotherapy is a broad term, and there is considerable overlap. My psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy draws on many of the same ideas.
The distinction concerns the direction of the work. Psychotherapy may focus on a particular difficulty, helping someone find relief and navigate their circumstances. In analysis, the inquiry can extend to the terms through which a person understands themselves: what they want, what they feel obliged to be, and how they become caught in patterns that also serve some less obvious purpose.
Relief from suffering matters. Analysis also makes room to question why a difficulty has taken this particular form and what keeps it returning. Understanding a pattern intellectually is part of that process; changing one’s relationship to it may involve more sustained work.
The analyst does not supply an ideal personality or a model of the right life. Your own questions, conflicts, and desires give the work its direction.
Beginning
You don’t need to decide in advance whether psychoanalysis or psychotherapy is the right description for what you need. We can begin by talking about what brings you here and consider how to proceed.
I offer a free initial consultation and am currently accepting new patients, with limited availability, primarily during daytime hours.