Psychoanalysis vs others

Hi,

So I have had a brief history with therapy/counseling. My first therapist was a dream to work with. An excellent fit, but we had to part ways because of her pregnancy and many other things going on in my life that threatened my continuing therapy (family, insurance, etc.). After about a year or two I needed the support of a professional again and found a counselor/therapist who I didn't click with very well but tried to stick it out with. He was very good about providing information and ideas of what to do to solve practical problems. I can call him and bounce off of him for practical issues such as job-hunting.

I think it is important that I continue to work with a professional for a time so that I can improve my self-esteem, resolve self-blame and self-judgment, and overcome the threat I feel from thoughts and urges of SH and Sui.

I went to a Water Yoga class, the instructor is a new friend, who strongly suggested a Psychonalyst to me. I've done very brief research and I'm currently on a wait-list with the nearby Women's Center. I was wondering, with Anxiety, Depression, and Self-harm what my best mode of therapy might be. I know that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one of my absolute favorites, but I've heard that Dialectal Behavioral Therapy can be helpful, and I'm wondering if undergoing treatment of Psychoanalysis might be any different than other methods of treatment.

So if you have any resources explaining different type of treatment theories, or personal experience with any one or combination of these things, please feel free to share!

Personally I find psychoanalyst the only therapy that really gets to the core.

I prefer CBT because of the practicality of it. My T is CBT and he still discusses with me what is at the core of my issues, but always has some practical suggestions for dealing with the actual issues while we work to resolve them.

I completely agree.

I'm not really familiar with psychoanalysis, but CBT and especially DBT helped me tremendously. Could you speak to someone at the office about the psychoanalytic approach?

I don't know about psychoanalysis (as in strictly Freudian, on the coach, not so much talking on the part of the analyst), but I have found (relational) psychodynamic therapy very very helpful. Psychodynamic therapy is -very loosely speaking- a modernized form of psychoanalysis: often brings to bear object relations and other theories. Usually once a week, active therapist.

It can go deep in ways that perhaps CBT cannot access (though I see people on here in CBT going deep, so I really think it depends on the therapist), but it's not all about the past/childhood as maybe the stereotype would suggest. The relationship with the therapist is considered very important -amongst other reasons, we tend to relate with our therapists in similar ways as we relate to other people in our lives (past and present) and in this way therapy can be a kind of laboratory to try out different ways of relating to others, improving how we relate to others. And, along similar lines, since we tend to project on the therapist past relationships and sometimes traumatic ones, working through how the therapeutic relationship (real and perceived) affects us can be very healing and eye opening; and the actual experience of this person who seems to hold the qualities of someone from our past, ending up being very different. It's all so hard to explain, though.

I don't have any links, but I'd suggest you do some research on modern psychodynamic therapy and see if you think it might be a good fit. You could also potentially do something like DBT at the same time, tackling issues from different angles. Good luck!

I haven't heard of psychodynamic therapy before so I'm definitely going to look into that. It sounds like a good description so far.

I might be able to. I did call the office and they asked me what kind of therapy I was looking for and I wasn't sure, but I explained that I'm a fan of CBT and then some hearsay. It might be possible to call and ask if there's someone I could talk to about different approaches...

@Everyone

Thank you so much for your responses! They really are helpful.

The old, classical version of psychoanalysis isn't practiced as much anymore. I just want to clarify that when I said psychoanalysis, I meant relational psychoanalysis. No laying down on a couch, no blank screen, very active conversations between the therapist and client, communication between sessions. I have the option to go more often if I want to, but I usually go just once a week or less depending on what's going on.

I have a therapist trained in analysis. T hasn't quite figured out how to compromise "traditional" psychoanalysis with modern relational psychoanalysis, but I think it's getting there. It's just once a week or less for me -- sometimes several weeks in between sessions.