In my view, psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a brave attempt to have a very different type of conversation, one where we break normal everyday conventions by paying special attention to what may be hidden in our speech and in our behaviours, thoughts and feelings.
You speak freely, and we both listen carefully with compassionate curiosity.
One of your roles in this “very different type of conversation” is the challenge to speak as freely as you can without censoring yourself. In psychoanalysis the term is free-association and it is the technique at the centre of the work. You speak freely while we both listen for potential connections between aspects of your story and speech and the complex ways things may relate.
It’s important to know you can talk about anything. Sometimes we don’t know we needed to talk about ________ until we talk it. Sometimes the things we don’t want to say because we think they’re bad or inappropriate need to be said for reasons that might surprise us.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is about being surprised by ourselves. Through the difficult and courageous work of speaking (and listening), we confront different possible explanations for our behaviours, thoughts, and feelings. Our job is to give space and be open to diverse explanations.
My part in the “very different type of conversation” is to also listen without judgement and to pay special attention to what makes you uniquely you. One judgement I will try to avoid is to understand you too quickly, but instead, to attune to the way you structure yourself through your experiences, strengths, defences, desires and more. In addition to this special type of listening, I will also ask questions and provide reflections and interpretations that are designed to help you do the hard work of analyzing yourself.
Scott Ryan - Registered Psychotherapist - MA, RP - CRPO #15548 