Offering Virtual Online Psychotherapy
What is Psychodynamic
Therapy Anyway?
Often referred to as psychoanalytic therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy focuses mainly on the unconscious roots of emotional suffering and the self- limiting behaviour patterns that emerge from them. The patient’s present-day challenges are considered through a developmental lens, looking at how early life experiences set the stage for recurring patterns of behaving, thinking and feeling over a lifetime. Such patterns are explored for their original effectiveness in helping the patient cope with early-life situations and then further examined for how self–limiting they become as the individual out-grows their effectiveness later in life. The patient is skillfully encouraged to explore life-enhancing alternatives to their past, default-mode behaviours and reactions.
The relationship between therapist and patient becomes fundamental to the therapy, and is sometimes called into analysis, acting as a window into relationship patterns outside of the therapy room. Also known as transference analysis, this line of inquiry may reveal how the patient transfers their feelings and reactions toward a parent, for example, onto the therapist. This not only offers an opportunity to see the ways in which past relationships affect current ones but also an opportunity to use the patient therapist relationship as a corrective relational model to set up a healthier compass for future relationships.
The relationship between therapist and patient becomes fundamental to the therapy, and is sometimes called into analysis, acting as a window into relationship patterns outside of the therapy room. Also known as transference analysis, this line of inquiry may reveal how the patient transfers their feelings and reactions toward a parent, for example, onto the therapist. This not only offers an opportunity to see the ways in which past relationships affect current ones but also an opportunity to use the patient-therapist relationship as a corrective relational model to set up a healthier compass for future relationships.
What To Expect
Psychodynamic therapy calls for an ongoing, weekly commitment, preferably at the same time each week, to be most effective.
To begin, we will have a brief assessment session to determine whether we are a good match and if psychodynamic psychotherapy is appropriate in your particular case. If so, and following the approval of my clinical supervisor, we will schedule our first set of appointments where we will spend a portion of the time taking your history and the other portion discussing the issues that brought you to seek therapy.
We run on the traditional “therapy hour” (50-minutes). While I am practicing as a student therapist, under CTP supervision, my rate remains $50/hour for which many patients are successfully reimbursed through their secondary insurance. Please check with your provider for eligibility if this is a concern. Payment will be due directly from the patient at the end of each appointment via e-transfer.
Anuja Pandey, Registered Psychotherapist 