“Touching Lives”
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in Toronto
Individuals are often unaware of many of the factors that determine their emotions and behaviours. The unconscious is the portion of the mind of which a person is not aware of. Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes the importance of childhood experiences. Our early experiences shape our personality traits and the lens through which we see ourselves and the world. Psychoanalytic theory originated with the work of Sigmund Freud. Through his clinical work with patients, Freud came to believe that childhood experiences and our unconscious influence our personality and our behaviour. According to Freud, conflicts that occur during developmental stages can have a lifelong consequences if left unresolved.
If you find yourself continually unhappy, anxious, having difficulties in work or love, self esteem or body image issues then unconscious agents may be affecting you and impinging on your life creating automatic and destructive patterns. Ask yourself whether you behave in ways that surprise you and displease you. The goal of treatment is an increased awareness inner emotional conflicts that may be constricting your lifestyle. With insight, and understanding one can work towards a more enriched, balanced, and full life.
Psychoanalytic Therapy Toronto
From infancy onward a person throughout their life tries to understand his/her reality and adapt to it. Healthy or unhealthy, your beliefs are central to your conscious and unconscious (out of your awareness) mental life. Psychoanalysis began with a brain and nervous system-centered model of behaviors, pathology, and treatment.
There is an emphasis on understanding your childhood and psychological development, on the assumption that early experiences influence the development of the mind/brain. Psychoanalytic or psychodynamic psychotherapy is a form of clinical practice based on psychoanalytic theory and principles.
I, as a trained psychotherapist, will help you identify repetitive patterns, understand your historical development, and work through unprocessed memories that may difficult and painful. Once these memories are processed you will be less influenced by them.
We will work towards modifying difficult life patterns and incapacitating symptoms, expanding your freedom to work and to love. Eventually, one’s behaviours, relationships, sense of self, and life, can change in deep and abiding ways.
Toronto Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
There is mounting evidence from recent meta-analyses that demonstrate the effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy. As a therapist I come to understand you, your beliefs about yourself and your world. Only then can I help you understand your perceived threats, fears, opportunities, etc.
People need a stable set of beliefs to guide them in their attempts to make and carry out their wishes and goals. If you hold on to early viewpoints that you are unlikable, stupid, worthless, etc. these beliefs will be undermining your life. In our exploration, these hidden beliefs will surface and we will work to diminish them and have them replaced with a more accurate understanding of yourself.
Understanding your unconscious mind is critical to your well-being. Learning what is adaptive and maladaptive in your functioning and how to master your mind to serve you is essential. Much of what we think and how we behave is automatic. We will use neurobiologic perspective and the psychoanalytic perspective to self-inquiry and self-understanding. Understanding what trigger certain emotional responses and sensitivities. .
I have provided some links to evidenced based research on the efficacy of this type of psychotherapy.
The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: what’s the evidence?
The effectiveness of long-term psychoanalytic therapy: a systematic review of empirical studies
