Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is the most comprehensive treatment available today for healing mental distress. In psychoanalysis, patients become aware of, and slowly master, factors outside of awareness which are interfering with happiness and life satisfaction. In an ongoing partnership with an analyst, a person gradually comes to know the underlying sources of his or her difficulties by re-experiencing them in relationship to the analyst. The intense and sustained relationship with the analyst is a unique, profound agent of change.
When a patient meets with an analyst four or five times a week and says whatever comes to mind, the analyst is gradually able to see hints of unconscious factors which are at the heart of the person's difficulties. These may be in ways the person relates to the analyst, areas of life about which the patient is hesitant to talk, or patterns which emerge in dreams, memories or behaviors. Together the patient and analyst engage these issues, leading to other and deeper areas of mutual experiencing and exploration. Psychoanalysis has also been adapted to the special capacities and vulnerabilities of children and adolescents, using additional techniques in accord with their stage of life.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a similar form of treatment, less intense but also effective, in which a patient and therapist meet once to three times weekly. Both psychoanalysis and psychotherapy can be combined with psychoactive medication if it becomes appropriate to alleviate anxiety or depression.
