The Psychotherapeutic conversation and how therapy cures

• Psychoanalytic psychotherapy aims to develop self awareness through the experience of a new and different relationship with the therapist that allows the client, through telling their story, to develop and integrate previously unknown or suppressed aspects of self. Parts of self become “lost” or suppressed through an experience of not being understood, seen or heard or through hiding parts of self due to traumatic experiences.
• The unconscious motivations and expectations that often lead a person to repeat negative or unhealthy patterns in relationships and life slowly becomes conscious through the therapeutic conversation. Within a safe and warm setting the client is encouraged to tell their story and I listen for unconscious expectations and motivations that often give one’s life familiar patterning and outcomes. Often I will also hear the parts of a client’s story that has not been lived yet (as in the wish and longing for something or someone new and different).
• A therapeutic conversation is healing in that I aim to listen to the client in a way that allows the client to feel optimally heard and understood through deep empathic immersion in their story, listening from within the client’s perspective with a non-judgemental attitude of curiosity and interest that facilitates a deep exploration of the story. This type of listening also encourages the client to be curious about their own story. Often the client feels listened to and believed in a way that they have not previously been. This type of listening creates a sense of collaboration between client and myself whereby the client’s telling of the story and my listening is now jointly held in mind in a way that allows the client to feel deeply understood and psychologically "known".