Psychodynamic psychotherapy is based on the premise that people often make decisions and form relationships for reasons that are not fully conscious. Patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that were once adaptive can continue to shape current experience, even when they no longer lead to satisfying outcomes.

These patterns may take place in everyday interactions—for example, in a tendency to manage others’ discomfort at the expense of one’s own needs—as well as in more significant areas such as relationships and career decisions. Because these patterns often operate automatically, they can be difficult to recognize.

With a psychodynamic approach to therapy, the work focuses on raising people’s awareness to these patterns and examining the underlying beliefs about oneself and others that sustain them. This examination often includes attention to recurring themes in both past and current relationships.

Greater insight can create the conditions for more deliberate and flexible choices. At the same time, insight alone is not always sufficient to produce change. My approach is therefore integrative, incorporating elements of other modalities—such as DBT, EFT, and motivational interviewing—when more structured or skills-based work is indicated.

For an enjoyable and succinct summary of psychoanalytic theory, take a look at Freud and Beyond: A History of Modern Psychoanalytic Thought, by Stephen A. Mitchell and Margaret J. Black.