Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy provides a space to understand yourself more deeply and make meaningful, lasting changes in how you think, feel, and relate to others. It involves regular, confidential conversations focused on your experiences, emotions, relationships, and patterns of behavior. The goal is not only to relieve distress but also to foster personal growth, greater self-understanding, and a sense of freedom in how you live your life.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a thoughtful, collaborative process aimed at helping you understand yourself more deeply and live with greater freedom, authenticity, and satisfaction. It’s based on the idea that many of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are shaped by unconscious processes, mental patterns and emotional habits that developed over time, often outside of our awareness. By bringing these patterns into consciousness, therapy makes it possible to understand and change them.

Understanding the Unconscious

Much of our inner life operates below the surface of awareness. You might notice repeating patterns, like feeling drawn to certain relationships, reacting strongly to criticism, or struggling with motivation, without fully understanding why. In therapy, we explore these unconscious drives and emotions together, so that what was once automatic can become something you understand, reflect on, and ultimately influence. This process is sometimes described by the topographical model, which distinguishes between what is conscious, what can become conscious, and what remains unconscious.

Managing Inner Conflict

Often, distress arises not from a single feeling but from internal conflict, parts of us wanting different things at the same time. For example, you might want closeness but also fear being vulnerable, or want to achieve but feel anxious about failing. The structural model describes how different aspects of the mind, the impulsive (id), the moral (superego), and the realistic (ego)—interact and sometimes clash. Psychodynamic therapy helps you recognize and balance these inner tensions, leading to a more integrated and self-directed life.

The Role of Early Relationships

Our earliest relationships shape how we understand ourselves and others. The ways we learned to seek comfort, handle disappointment, or manage closeness often repeat in adult life. Through object relations, the internalized templates of relationships from childhood, we may unconsciously replay old dynamics in current relationships or even in therapy itself. Recognizing and understanding these patterns allows new, healthier ways of relating to emerge.

Building Self-Esteem and Agency

Psychodynamic therapy also focuses on how our sense of self develops and how it can be strengthened. Drawing on self-psychology, therapy provides an empathic, consistent relationship in which you can better understand your emotional needs, build self-esteem, and develop a stronger sense of agency, the feeling that you can act effectively in your life. Over time, this leads not only to relief from symptoms but also to a deeper sense of wholeness and vitality.

How Change Happens

Lasting change grows from understanding yourself in new ways, within a safe and reflective therapeutic relationship. By exploring both your inner world and your relationships with others, you can make sense of longstanding patterns, resolve emotional conflicts, and experience greater freedom to live in line with your values and desires.

Humanistic Psychotherapy

Humanistic psychotherapy focuses on helping you reconnect with your innate capacity for growth, authenticity, and self-understanding. It starts from the belief that people are fundamentally oriented toward health and meaning, and that emotional suffering often arises when life experiences lead us to lose touch with our true selves.

A Collaborative and Empathic Process

Humanistic therapy emphasizes genuine, empathic connection between therapist and patient. The therapist’s role is not to judge or “analyze,” but to provide a safe, respectful space where you can explore your feelings and experiences honestly. This approach was pioneered by Carl Rogers, who described three essential qualities that make therapy healing: empathy (deep understanding of your perspective), genuineness (an authentic, human relationship), and unconditional positive regard (acceptance of you as you are). These qualities allow you to experience yourself more fully and begin to trust your own inner wisdom.

Becoming More Fully Yourself

Rather than focusing on symptoms alone, humanistic therapy helps you explore what it means to live a life that feels authentic and meaningful. Together, we work to identify the beliefs, fears, or self-criticisms that may have developed in response to past experiences—often ways of coping that once protected you but now limit you. Through greater self-awareness and compassion, you can begin to let go of these constraints and live with a stronger sense of purpose and freedom.

Integrating Experience and Growth

Humanistic psychotherapy views emotional distress not as a sign of illness but as a signal that something important within you needs attention or change. By listening closely to your emotions and values, therapy helps align your thoughts, feelings, and actions. This process often leads to increased self-esteem, deeper connections with others, and a renewed sense of vitality.

How Change Happens

In the context of a genuine, supportive relationship, you learn to hear yourself more clearly and to trust your own experience. Over time, this process fosters greater self-acceptance, clarity about what truly matters to you, and the courage to live in accordance with your values. The result is not just relief from distress, but a deeper sense of being fully alive and at home in yourself.

Frequency and Duration of Treatment

Psychotherapy is most effective when sessions occur regularly, usually once per week. Weekly meetings help build and sustain the therapeutic relationship, which is one of the most important factors in meaningful change. Consistent sessions create continuity between meetings, allowing us to explore experiences as they unfold in real time and maintain momentum in your treatment.

Some people choose to meet more frequently (for example, twice per week) when deeper or longer-standing issues are being addressed. The length of treatment varies by individual needs, some may benefit from shorter-term focused work, while others engage in therapy for a longer period as part of ongoing personal growth.