How is analytic therapy different from other types of therapy?

All modes of therapy are derived from psychoanalytic theories, either by adapting, refuting or diverging from them.  Each therapeutic concept poses and answers two questions: “What causes psychological or emotional problems and what fixes them?” 

Unlike the wide variety of therapies that promise fast “cures” and focus solely on a single problem or symptom, analysis considers you as a whole person, not just problematic “parts.”  It is a psychological journey that slowly integrates all aspects of your life and does so by linking your inner and outer worlds, your dreams, wishes, desires, losses, past and present.  It links early childhood experiences to your life right now.  Many people begin psychoanalytic therapy after having had negative, impermanent or unsuccessful experiences in other forms of treatment.

Psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy differs from more basic, “band aid” treatment modalities in that, rather than simply focusing upon your external world, relationships or behavior, it also explores and improves your relationship with yourself, your inner world and your feelings. Your outer world and relationships will automatically begin to change as your inner world begins to make sense and shift.  If psychology attempts to understand and control thoughts and/or behavior, analysis explains how your mind works.  It is a much more comprehensive therapeutic approach. 

Unlike other psychological treatment approaches that focus only on behavior, thoughts or a combination of these features and then simply try to control them, analytic therapy delves beneath, to explore the emotional roots that drive these thoughts, beliefs and behaviors, bringing them into awareness.  This process is called "working through,"