What is psychoanalysis?

What sets psychoanalysis apart from other treatments is its ability to work with the entirety of an individual’s life, and not merely with the symptom itself. Hence, we deal with fears, anxieties, fantasies, dreams, jealousies, and the gamut of one’s life history. Practically, it is a practice of association coming to take the place of a dissociation that we have grown accustomed to; an act of making connections where they had been severed, or at least severely limited.

We can also think of psychoanalysis as the name we give to a very specific process of recovery, i.e. the one by which we come to know something that we have always known, but which has evaded our conscious grasp. These “unconscious” elements persist in our lives, beyond our everyday awareness, and are the immediate cause of our suffering. As such, they lead us to repeat patterns and relationships that are harmful, painful, and often antithetical to what we want out of life. Analysis is thus a dual process of discovery and recovery. Just like archaeology, the more we uncover, the more our understanding of our own history changes. Our narratives and notions shift as the lens through which we view ourself changes. It is this type of intervention that offers us a choice, a possibility, where we previously did not have one.

Such a process entails working with another (a psychoanalyst) who listens to the way these elements function in one’s speech and language. Put differently: we will be “working with your unconscious”. This type of work is best done regularly, in-person, and multiple times a week, as the frequency enables the practice to develop in the face of a variety of defenses.