The aim of psychodynamic therapy is to address the foundation and formation of psychological processes. This means it aims to gain greater insight into the way people process thoughts and feelings and why they process them this way.
By helping people improve their understanding of how they feel and think, psychodynamic therapy helps people to make better choices, improve their relationships with other people and work toward achieving the goals or achievements that will bring them satisfaction and joy.
What is Psychodynamic Therapy?
Psychodynamic therapy – also known as the psychodynamic approach or psychodynamic psychotherapy – is derived from psychoanalysis and the theories of Sigmund Freud.
Psychodynamic therapy is a talking therapy, meaning it is based on the theory that talking through your problems can help you learn and develop the skills required to address them.
Psychodynamic therapy can be short or long term.
Brief Psychodynamic Therapy
Brief psychodynamic therapy sessions aim to produce results very quickly, often in 25 to 30 sessions. Short term psychodynamic psychotherapy is goal-focused and will generally only cover one topic or area.
Long Term Psychodynamic Therapy
Long term psychodynamic therapy on the other hand can be intense and open-ended and may go on for years. It allows more time for a therapeutic relationship to be built, which is incredibly important to psychodynamic therapy.
How Does Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Work?
Psychodynamic therapy aims to help people understand the often unknown or unconscious motivations behind difficult feelings and behaviors. This is done by openly and freely discussing topics such as childhood and your relationship with your parents.
This can help you understand what you’re feeling now, why you behave in a certain way and how this affects your relationships.
It is based on psychodynamic theory which states that behaviour is influenced by unconscious thought and when painful feelings that make a person feel vulnerable are processed or resolved, the defence mechanisms that often hinder mental health, decision making or relationships are reduced.
Free Association in Psychodynamic Therapy
Sigmund Freud, who founded psychoanalytic therapy used free-association, asking patients to share the seemingly random thoughts that enter their mind, encouraging them to be spontaneous. The psychodynamic therapist will often give the patient a word to begin the process with the aim of helping them understand what their ‘unconscious disturbances’ are.
Psychodynamic Therapies Versus Other Psychological Therapies
Unlike behavioural therapy such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), psychodynamic therapy facilitates the process of an individual ‘rewriting’ their life narrative.
Problem-based talk therapy, such as CBT or dialectic behavioural therapy are seen to reduce or eliminate symptoms instead of addressing the client’s deep-seated needs, desires and experiences that have shaped them.
While solution focused therapy is a therapeutic approach that assists patients in creating new ways of approaching challenges, psychodynamic approaches help the client ‘go deeper’ and face the root of behaviour patterns or defence mechanisms.
Both have great success in treating depression, anxiety, addiction and other mental health conditions.
Core Principles of Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic treatment aims to; enhance a person’s self-awareness and understanding of their thoughts, unconscious feelings, and beliefs in relation to the patient’s life experiences, particularly early life experiences.
This is based on a number of beliefs about human development:
The unconscious mind is one of the most powerful drivers of human behaviour and emotion
All behaviour is determined; meaning there is a cause or reason for all behaviors
Unconscious motivations — such as social pressure, biology, and psychology — can affect behaviour.
Experiences during childhood have a significant impact on thoughts, emotions, and behaviour
In particular, conflicts during childhood development mould our overall personality as adults
Gaining insight and emotional understanding of how certain events and experiences have shaped us can help individuals with psychological disorders
Growing the perceived range of choices a person has and improving personal relationships can help people address their problems, including mental health problems
Many of these key principles have evolved from psychoanalytic theory, including ego psychology and self psychology and the work of Freud although there have been many changes, adaptations and addictions since the work of Freud.
Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual
The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM) was released in 2006 as an alternative to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), offering a manual that describes subjective experiences as opposed to only objective observable symptoms associated with mental health conditions.
PDM uses the DSM diagnostic categories but also includes accounts of the internal experience of an individual with the aim of describing “what one is rather than what one has”.
The PDM provides an alternative framework to categorical diagnosis that many psychodynamic therapists find restrictive. It aims to capture the depth of emotional, cognitive and social patterns, explicitly described as a “taxonomy of people” as opposed to a “taxonomy of diseases”.
What to Expect in a Session
Psychodynamic therapy sessions will generally last around 45 minutes to an hour, you may meet with your therapist weekly or a few times each week for several months or in some cases, patients will continue for over a year.
During psychodynamic sessions, therapists may deploy a range of major techniques from clinical psychology and psychological medicine. The exact methods used depend greatly on the preferred counselling practice of the therapist you choose and what symptoms or experiences you report.
The therapist will encourage you to talk about anything that’s on your mind, but will often encourage you to focus on unconscious processes that they believe may be causing problems for you.
This may cause some emotional distress so having a trusting relationship with your therapist is important. The relationship between patient and therapist can result in transference, which happens when the patient transfers feelings for someone onto the therapist. This can be both positive and negative but either way, working through transferred feelings is an important part of psychodynamic therapy
Positive Transference
Applying positive or enjoyable aspects of a past relationship – with a parent for example – onto your therapist can strengthen your relationship. Viewing your therapist as kind, wise, caring and concerned about you can have a positive outcome on the therapeutic relationship.
Negative Transference
Negative transference can actually greatly enhance the therapeutic experience and provide useful insight into relationship patterns. When the therapist has identified the transference, they can adopt it as a discussion topic to examine your emotional response. This can give rise to increased self reflection helping you associate repressed emotions with present behaviour. This intimate look at interpersonal relationships, unconscious feelings and emotional processes can help people understand their role in relationship patterns.
Dream Analysis
Analysing dreams is another technique that many therapists use. You will be invited to keep a record of your dreams, then explain or relay them to your therapist. The therapist will encourage you to analyse or interpret these dreams, providing suggestions for hidden meanings and underlying motivations.
Childhood Experiences
During therapy, you will likely be asked to recount early childhood experiences as it is thought that experiences and relationships during childhood have significant influence on the development of personality disorders (such as Borderline Personality Disorder), eating disorders, detrimental behaviours and addiction.
People struggling with anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and relationship and personality difficulties often benefit from psychodynamic therapy. It is also beneficial with somatization disorders – where psychological or emotional difficulties are experienced as physical health problems – as well as self-destructive behaviour patterns such as drug abuse. If you are looking for one-to-one support with any of these issues, psychodynamic psychotherapy may be a good fit for you.
What Dynamic Psychodynamic Therapy Help With?
Like other therapies, psychodynamic therapy can be used to treat a variety of mental health conditions with varying psychiatric symptoms.
Anxiety disorders
Depression
Eating disorders
Interpersonal problems
Personality disorders
Psychological distress
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Substance use disorders
Contact Us
If you would like to learn more about long or short term psychodynamic therapy or any other form of therapy and our luxury private mental health treatment, contact Addcounsel today. Our treatments are delivered with compassion and care by highly skilled mental health specialists, following our one client at a time methodology.
