By: Dr Bruce Bradfield
One of the strengths of a practice such as this one is that it consists of six psychotherapists who each have a unique way of thinking about and approaching the work that we do. Psychotherapeutic practice has many many faces, even though there are certain grounding principles which unite the efforts of psychotherapists. But the fact is that even though we all call ourselves psychotherapists, the actual work that we do can be vastly different, and so what happens in each separate space is not only a matter of individual creativity, but also of a choice made by each psychotherapist to follow a particular path based on what we believe to be therapeutically useful. Of course this is directly affected by each person who enters the room, and so the nature and quality of the work done is, in the end of the day, affected by a mutual and reciprocal relationship which develops between therapist and patient. Aside from what happens in the therapist-patient relationship, there is nonetheless the question of “What kind of psychotherapist are you, and does that work for me?” that needs to be thought and talked about when a therapy process begins. With this in mind, and with a view to taking some ownership of the therapy process, I would always encourage people to do a bit of research before entering a process, to explore the forms of therapy that they feel would work for them, and to search for a therapist who engages with these forms of therapy.
The form of therapy that I believe in, and that I offer to the people I work with, is very broadly defined as psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Psychoanalysis, as a form of treatment that has about 150 years of history, is defined in various ways by a number of schools, branching out from classical Freudian thinking. As a method broadly defined, psychoanalytic psychotherapy engages with various levels of depth experience. Firstly, and perhaps most centrally, psychoanalytic psychotherapy concerns the process of drawings links between conscious and unconscious experience; links between the things we know about ourselves, the things we know but don’t think about (because it is too painful or anxiety-arousing), and the things we don’t know and cannot think about (because it is potentially traumatic). This is why the beginning phase of a psychoanalytic psychotherapy is often focused on asking very detailed and specific questions about history of relationships, family patterns and attachments to the primary people in our lives, as this kind of historical information is an important route to getting to know our unconscious mental life.
Psychoanalytic theory maintains that the vast proportion of mental life is unconscious, meaning that there is much that we don’t yet know or understand about the Hows and Whys of our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. One of the most fascinating and ongoing experiences that we have during the course of a psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy is that of discovery, sometimes shocking discovery, as we become acquainted with parts of ourselves which we did not know about. In this sense the psychoanalytic process is one of developing an awareness of – and relationship with – as yet unknown parts of the self, and doing this within the context of a relationship with the therapist, in which there is enough safety and trust for this development to happen; a feature which of course applies to all forms of psychotherapy. For psychoanalytic psychotherapy, however, there is a strong emphasis placed on the dynamics of the therapist-patient relationship. Here we have the second core aspect of the psychoanalytic process: what happens to you, what happens to me, and what happens in between us in the 50-minute hour.
The basic principle in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, as far as the relationship is concerned, is that our internal world influences how we relate to people, and so the kinds of relationship conflicts and struggles that take place out there in the world are likely to find their way into the therapy, where they play out in the space between therapist and patient. When this transference of feelings, from the outside in, takes place, we have a unique opportunity to examine and reflect on the known and as-yet-unknown thoughts and feelings taking place in you, me, and us. Often this kind of work can cause a lot of anxiety, especially when there is not enough trust in the therapeutic relationship. This is one of the reasons why psychoanalytic psychotherapy emphasizes the importance of long-term, routine, weekly work, that gives absolute respect to the importance of trust and safety as something that develops over time.
Beyond exploring the ongoing here-and-now dynamics of the therapeutic relationship as a vehicle for developing understandings of the self, psychoanalytic psychotherapy places a very strong emphasis on the notion that therapy mimics and replays the developmental process that we all undergo from infancy to adulthood. The idea here is that the deepest level of psychological injury is that which occurs to us when we are most vulnerable, and least developed. Any form of deprivation, neglect, loss, separation or trauma occurring at this level therefore forms a central part of the therapeutic search, and is considered as an experience which disrupts our development. The work of psychoanalytic psychotherapy is to recognize this level of disruption, and provide the patient with a safe enough relationship which can enable these undeveloped parts of the self to grow.
With considerable emphasis being placed on the notion of developmental trauma, psychoanalytic psychotherapy attends to the various ways in which we defend ourselves against the awareness of too much pain and anxiety. Coming to understand our internal defensive processes, and coming to know how these defensive processes play out in our behaviour, thoughts, feelings and relationships, forms a central part of the focus of the work. With this in mind, and considering the emphasis on psychoanalytic work as a developmental process in itself, it is an important feature of the work that it is not too focused on being directive, and on having a specific plan or structure in mind. The work does not involve any particular step-by-step activities, it is not shaped according to a particular framework other than the absolute boundary of same time, same place, every week. as such, it is a very carefully boundaried, but not particularly directed approach. Often patients struggle with this, and it would be an important aspect of the decision to enter therapy that this aspect is known and understood. And so the question “What works for whom?” is absolutely relevant, and is one that we need to ask before entry into therapy, for the sake of feeling ownership of the process, and knowing that you have arrived at the place you intended to arrive at when you walk into the room. The next big question, and one that I might think about in the next newsletter, relates to the actual fit between the person of the patient, and the person of the therapist.