What is the Psychodynamic Approach?
Psychodynamic therapy grew out of the psychoanalytic tradition.
- It is underpinned by the idea that each of us has an unconscious – aspects of our lives that sit outside of conscious awareness, that can drive us to think, feel, and behave in ways that we do not understand, or even register.
Think of times when you have known what to do about something and yet still find yourself doing the thing that ultimately goes against that better judgment. It can be deeply upsetting and frustrating.
- Psychodynamic therapy would seek to understand, to be gently curious, about why we might go against ourselves in this way, rather than simply seek to stop doing the unhelpful thing.
- It is about getting to the root of the issue and tending to the healing from the bottom up.
- It focuses on the relationship between the therapist and the client because the way we relate to each other may often tell us about your early relationships and the templates for relationships that have developed out of your experiences.
Adapting psychodynamic therapy to be queer-and neuro-affirming:
In its classical practice, psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapies can be oppressive, psychically violent and harmful for queer, trans, autistic and otherwise neurodivergent folk. It does not have to be this way, but too often it has been and continues to be.
The theories are built on heteronormative and neuronormative ideas that pathologise perfectly ordinary differences in ways we might live, love and learn/process/interact with/experience the world.
It is common in psychodynamic therapies to offer an interpretation of a client’s difficulties, often stated as if fact. A common autistic experience is one in which one’s words are questioned, invalidated, disbelieved, or misinterpreted. This chronic misreading of a person causes great harm and not only to the autistic population. When a person is chronically invalidated and they experience repeated testimonial injustice, it can lead to a relentless self-questioning that warps what might otherwise be a helpful level of self-reflection. The result of this is further alienation from oneself and trust in one’s own sense of oneself. This level of dissociation is too often encouraged in a society built on neurotypical norms. My approach is to offer ideas I might have about what is happening for a client based on what they have told me, while explaining how my thinking process got me there, so that the client can tell me if that resonates or not. It is an offering, not a statement. It will be a hypothesis and the client has the authority over its truth or resonance or not.
Other adaptations I make are that I am active in the therapeutic process, silence has its place, but it depends upon what it means for –and how it is experienced by – the client. I may be more active by asking questions if it is hard to start speaking and this is desired. Some psychodynamic therapists would wait for the client to speak first, to see what they do with the silence and what emerges in the not-knowing. For some neurodivergent people, this can be like being locked out of a world where it seems everyone else knows the rules. I am happy to explain the thinking behind the things I do or do not do and to be in conversation with clients about what it is like for them, as well as to think together about whether we can adapt to their needs better.
LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent clients are all individuals and there is no one way of working with any population of people. If you have an access need around communication style, session length, frequency, etc., please feel free to email with these and we can discuss.
What Might It Be Like To Work With Me?
I do not take for granted that you will feel safe with me as safety means different things to different people and trust is grown in a relationship that shows itself to be trustworthy. Trust and safety are also dynamic and shifting. This is something we work towards and with. I welcome your honesty and when honesty feels too scary, we can talk around fears to do with honesty, what risks are at play for you, in the context of your experiences.
A therapeutic relationship can be a vital space in trying out new ways of relating, of speaking hurts even if you feel they might seem ‘unreasonable’, of asserting yourself and taking up space and agency in your life. I aim to create a place where you can experiment, try things out, not be pinned down by the things you say, and where we can listen to the lesser heard aspects of you with care.
To get a better sense of whether I am someone you would like to work with see my About Me page.
