Psychoanalysis is an intensive form of psychotherapy that usually involves several sessions per week in order to facilitate a more thorough exploration of one's emotional life. While day to day problems and struggles are certainly a focus of treatment, attention is also given to one's internal psychological experience, including dreams and fantasies, as a means of generating a deeper appreciation of ourselves, our wishes and the ways that we protect ourselves from emotional pain. 

Relational psychoanalysis is a particular form of therapy that represents the evolution of psychoanalytic thinking over the past half-century. It integrates contemporary knowledge about attachment, development, and neuroscience with the enduring psychoanalytic understanding that much of our emotional life operates outside of our conscious awareness. Treatment emphasizes a collaborative therapeutic relationship in which insight, emotional experience, and new ways of relating work together. The therapeutic relationship itself becomes an essential part of the treatment, offering an opportunity to recognize familiar patterns as they unfold in the here and now, and to experience new ways of understanding oneself and relating to others. Earlier forms of psychoanalysis often viewed insight or understanding as the primary vehicle of change. Relational Psychoanalysis recognizes that understanding is essential, but that lasting change occurs when new emotional experiences become possible within the therapeutic relationship itself.

Psychoanalytic treatment strives to help people achieve increased psychological freedom and flexibility, as well as learn new ways to live, love and work with genuine vitality in life.  It can be a highly effective form of creating lasting emotional change and building psychological resiliency. Research in psychoanalysis has demonstrated that its results are long lasting and may even be superior to those of short term approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy or medication alone.  If you are interested in learning more about psychoanalysis or the research regarding its effectiveness, please see the links to the resources I've provided below.