Psychoanalysis
A way of working with the parts of yourself that have not yet been spoken.
What psychoanalysis is
Psychoanalysis is the most thorough form of psychotherapy we have. It rests on a simple but radical premise: that much of what shapes our lives — our anxieties, our patterns of love, our self-doubt, our impulses to repeat what hurts us — operates outside of conscious awareness. Symptoms, in this view, are not problems to be eliminated. They are communications from a part of the self that does not yet have other words.
The work of analysis is the slow, careful effort to give those parts language. We follow what arises in your mind — memories, dreams, fragments, feelings, the things you find yourself saying without quite meaning to. Over time, the pattern beneath the patterns begins to show itself, and something genuinely changes — not because you have been told what to do, but because you have come to know yourself more honestly.
How I practice
I work both in psychoanalysis proper and in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and I think the distinction matters.
Psychoanalysis proper — what most analysts and most analytic institutes have historically called "analysis" — involves meeting three or more times each week, usually with the patient on the couch. The greater frequency and the use of the couch are not arbitrary traditions. They allow a depth of regression, free association, and engagement with the unconscious that less intensive work cannot quite reach.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy — once or twice weekly, sitting up, face to face — is its own valuable modality. It is shaped by the same theoretical foundations, the same attention to the unconscious, and the same patience with what cannot be rushed. It is not analysis, but it is deeply analytic in spirit, and it is the right form of work for many people.
Which of these is right for you is not something I decide unilaterally. We discuss it openly, case by case, taking into account what you are trying to understand, the practical realities of your life, and what we both sense the work itself is asking for. Some patients begin in psychotherapy and deepen into analysis over time. Others know from the beginning what they want. Both are legitimate paths.
How I think
My theoretical home is object relations — the British tradition of Klein, Winnicott, Fairbairn, and Bion, which understands the inner life as populated by internal representations of self and other, shaped by our earliest relationships and continually re-enacted in the present. This is the lens through which I think about what unfolds between us.
My clinical stance, however, is relational. I am not a blank screen. I am a person in the room with you, affected by what passes between us, and I take seriously the idea that the analytic relationship itself is one of the most important instruments of change.
While object relations is my primary theoretical home, I draw on the full breadth of psychoanalytic thought as the work requires — classical Freudian, ego psychology, self psychology, Lacanian, and contemporary intersubjective writers all have something to offer the right patient at the right moment. I also work in a trauma-informed way, and I consider cultural, socioeconomic, and political context to be part of any honest psychoanalytic understanding of a person. We are not minds in jars.
Is a psychoanalyst the same as a psychologist?
What do your credentials mean?
It’s a fair question, and the answer surprises many people. “Psychoanalyst” is not a license — it’s a course of advanced training a clinician pursues after they are already qualified in another field. Analysts arrive at the work from different starting points: some are physicians, some are psychologists, and many are social workers or marriage and family therapists. Excellent clinicians come from all of these paths. But it does mean that the word “analyst” on its own doesn’t tell you what kind of training sits beneath it.
I hold both credentials. I am a licensed psychologist — a doctoral qualification (my Psy.D.) involving years of training in human development, psychopathology, and psychological assessment, carried by a state license and the accountability that comes with it. I then completed full formal training in psychoanalysis at the Florida Psychoanalytic Institute — further years of coursework, supervised analytic cases, and a personal analysis of my own — and I am board-certified as a Fellow of the American Board of Psychoanalysis.
I mention this not to rank one path above another, but because you deserve to understand what you’re choosing. For work this deep and long-term, it’s worth knowing how someone was trained, what they’re licensed to do, and who holds them accountable. I’m always glad to answer questions about my background before we begin.