Ever find yourself reacting to things in ways that don’t seem to make sense, like getting upset over something small, or feeling anxious for no clear reason? You’re not alone. Psychodynamic therapy is all about figuring out why we do the things we do. It helps you dig into the stuff that’s sitting quietly in the background of your mind, shaping how you feel and act without you even knowing it.
Rather than just focusing on “fixing” the symptoms, psychodynamic therapy looks at the deeper emotional currents that drive our behaviour. It’s based on the idea that a lot of our feelings and reactions today are influenced by things we’ve experienced in the past, especially in childhood. Once you start connecting the dots, a lot of things that didn’t make sense before start to feel clearer.
How Does Psychodynamic Therapy Work?
Psychodynamic therapy consists of therapy sessions that are free flowing and not bound by a rigid structure. This ensures that there is space for free flowing conversation where the patient feels comfortable. As a result, people start to explore their thought structures and feelings in a much more organised and clear sense, as and when they come up.
Here’s a simple breakdown of what the psychodynamic therapy process actually looks like:
- Opening Up: One of the main reasons as to why psychodynamic therapy sessions are devoid of a rigid structured plan is to encourage patients to talk freely. Psychodynamic therapy sessions provide a comfortable space for you to talk about whatever you feel like.
- Looking Back at the Past: Another crucial aspect of psychodynamic therapy is to step into the past experiences and examine significant events and relationships. The reasoning behind this is to see how they might still be affecting you. You might realise that a current fear of rejection is tied to how you were treated as a kid, or that your stress around certain situations goes way back.
- Making Connections: As the sessions progress, your therapist will help you in connecting the dots between your past and present. For instance, let's assume that it is hard for you to trust people. Through psychodynamic therapy, you will realise how this feeling is uprooted from your past experience of certain relationships while growing up. Suddenly, things start making a lot more sense.
- Reinforcing Change: An important step to start making positive changes in your life is to understand and accept what really impacts your emotions and behaviour. Once you have acknowledged the same, your therapist helps you in regulating your everyday actions in a healthy manner.
Why Choose Psychodynamic Therapy?
Instead of merely focusing on resolving issues at the surface level, psychodynamic therapy essentially focuses on the driving force behind your feelings and emotions. Hence, it becomes important to know that psychodynamic therapy cannot be synonymous with a quick-fix. However, this does not negate the fact that psychodynamic therapy provides lasting and long-term changes because it helps you understand what’s really going on.
Here are some benefits of psychodynamic therapy:
- Getting to Know Yourself Better: Psychodynamic therapy helps you in gaining a better understanding of yourself. These talk therapy sessions make you comprehend why you feel what you feel. Thus, helping you in making sense of your actions and emotions.
- Long-Lasting Emotional Relief: This therapy ensures that you are not just putting a band-aid over your problems. Instead, psychodynamic therapy empowers you to deal with underlying issues in a much better manner by addressing the root cause of your issues. As a result, the changes you make for your self improvement tend to stick around.
- Improving Relationships: When you are not feeling well emotionally or mentally, a lot of issues can start to seep into your personal relationship dynamics. Be it friendship, familial relations or romantic relationships. Psychodynamic therapy helps you in detecting your emotional patterns and responses. Once you start understanding these patterns, it makes it easier for you to implement changes and work on how you relate with others.
- Personal Growth: Beyond just feeling better, this type of therapy encourages deeper personal growth. You’ll not only learn to cope with emotions in healthier ways, but you’ll also develop more strength for the future in terms of how you deal with things on a daily basis.
What Are the Stages of Psychodynamic Therapy?
So, psychodynamic therapy doesn’t exactly follow a strict set of steps, but here’s a general flow to how it works:
1. Evaluation Phase: In the beginning of your sessions, it is normal for your therapist to get to know you better. This might include gaining a sense of your history, current situation, general likes and dislikes, the issues that you wish to work upon, etc. The purpose behind this is to build a foundation of trust between you and your therapist.
2. Induction Phase: Once you’re comfortable, the real work begins. You, along with your therapist, work on setting goals for yourself in how to implement the learnings of your psychodynamic therapy sessions in your daily life.
3. Mid-Phase: This stage is one of the most elongated phases of your psychodynamic therapy. Here, you learn to reconstruct yourself by trying to achieve the goals that were set during your induction phase.
4. End Phase: During this phase, you start feeling more balanced and aligned with yourself. Your therapist maps the changes that you have implemented so far. If need be, future sessions are scheduled as well.
Different Types of Psychodynamic Therapy
There are different ways to approach psychodynamic therapy, depending on your needs:
1. Brief Psychodynamic Therapy: This typically lasts only for a few months. Hence, these sessions can be ideal for you if you are seeking to tackle a specific problem in your life.
2. Expressive Psychodynamic Therapy: This approach is all about helping you express and process deep emotions that might generally be difficult to access.
3. Supportive Psychodynamic Therapy: This type of therapy is a combination of emotional exploration with practical support. It’s ideal if you’re dealing with a lot of stress and need some extra help managing day-to-day life while also working through deeper issues.
Difference Between Psychodynamic and Psychoanalytic Therapy
At first glance, psychodynamic therapy and psychoanalytic therapy might seem pretty similar. After all, both approaches are rooted in the idea that our unconscious mind plays a huge role in how we think and behave. But, there are some key differences between the two.
1. Depth vs. Focus: Psychoanalytic therapy tends to be much more in-depth. The goal is to explore every corner of your unconscious mind to understand yourself on the deepest level possible. Psychodynamic therapy, on the other hand, is more focused. While it still looks at your unconscious mind and past experiences, it’s typically shorter and zeroes in on specific issues that are causing problems in your life right now.
2. Time Commitment: Psychoanalytic therapy often lasts for years, with several sessions scheduled each week. In contrast, psychodynamic therapy often lasts a few months to a year, with weekly sessions.
3. Therapist’s Role: In psychoanalytic therapy, the therapist usually takes a more passive role. You do most of the talking, while they listen and offer interpretations of your thoughts and dreams. With psychodynamic therapy, the therapist tends to be more engaged, asking questions and guiding you towards understanding certain patterns or emotions.
4. Goals: Psychoanalytic therapy is more focused on gaining deep, long-term insight into your personality and unconscious mind as a whole. On the other hand, psychodynamic therapy is often more focused on creating change in your current life. It’s about understanding how your past is affecting you now, and then using that insight to improve your relationships, emotions, and behaviours in a more immediate way.