Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a space to think more deeply about yourself, your relationships, and the emotional patterns that shape your life. People often come to therapy feeling stuck in ways they cannot fully explain. They may notice the same struggles repeating in relationships, feel disconnected from themselves, or find that certain emotions feel difficult to understand, express, or move through. This work begins with the idea that our histories continue to live within us, often outside of conscious awareness, influencing how we experience ourselves and others in the present.

Over time, therapy helps bring words and understanding to experiences that may have previously felt confusing, automatic, or hard to articulate. We pay attention to recurring themes, emotional reactions, dreams, bodily experiences, and the ways you may have learned to protect yourself from pain. As these patterns become easier to recognize and think about, people often find they are able to respond to themselves and others with greater freedom and flexibility rather than feeling caught in the same cycles.

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy tends to move at a different pace than more solution-focused approaches, it creates room for deeper change to emerge over time. The relationship that develops in therapy becomes an important part of the work itself: a place where difficult feelings, conflicts, and experiences can be explored thoughtfully. For many people, this process leads to a stronger sense of self, more meaningful relationships, and a greater capacity to engage with life fully.

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a way of coming to know yourself more deeply. Often, people find themselves repeating patterns in relationships, struggling with emotions that feel confusing or overwhelming, or feeling disconnected from parts of themselves without fully understanding why. Psychoanalytic work creates space to slow down and become curious about these experiences rather than simply trying to get rid of symptoms as quickly as possible. Over time, unconscious patterns, conflicts, and ways of protecting oneself from pain begin to emerge more clearly, making new ways of experiencing yourself and relating to others possible.

You are encouraged to speak freely about whatever comes to mind, including thoughts, memories, dreams, fantasies, bodily experiences, or even things that feel difficult or embarrassing to say out loud. Together, we pay attention not only to what is said, but to emotional patterns, recurring themes, and the ways certain experiences may continue to live in the present. Psychoanalysis has evolved significantly since Freud first described it as the “talking cure,” and contemporary analytic work is often collaborative, relational, and deeply attuned to the complexity of each individual person.

Psychoanalysis is typically a longer-term and more in-depth form of treatment, often involving meeting more than once a week. While it can help alleviate immediate suffering, the work also aims for something broader: a deeper capacity for self-understanding, emotional freedom, intimacy, creativity, and engagement with life. Rather than offering quick solutions, psychoanalysis creates the possibility for lasting psychological change and a more integrated sense of self.

Psychoanalysis and therapy sessions can be done remotely or by phone in Houston,WA, IL, or MD and in person in Austin, TX.