What psychoanalytic therapy involves
Kleinian psychoanalysis is a particular current within psychoanalysis, developed from the work of Melanie Klein. It is concerned with how very early experience and unconscious phantasy shape our adult mind and our relationships.
In the Kleinian tradition, close attention is paid to the unconscious phantasies and emotions that emerge already in early childhood. These early experiences matter for the development of the personality, and understanding them can help in working through mental difficulty.
The work centres on exploring these unconscious processes — through dreams, free association, and what unfolds in the therapeutic relationship itself. This allows for a deeper understanding of oneself, one's emotions and one's relationships. The aim is not only the relief of symptoms, but the experience and working-through of unconscious conflicts whose roots lie in early relationships.
How the work proceeds
- Free association — I encourage you to say whatever comes to mind, however trivial, embarrassing or disjointed it may seem.
- Interpretation — together we attend to what your words may carry beneath the surface, and to their links with earlier experience.
- Working with transference — feelings and relational patterns from the past are often unconsciously transferred onto the therapist. Recognising and working through this transference is one of the central tasks of the therapy.
- Attending to countertransference — my own emotional responses in the room are an important source of understanding of your inner world.
The frame and its length
Kleinian psychoanalytic therapy is a process that unfolds over time, lasting from several months to several years. It is demanding, but its aim is lasting change in the way one experiences oneself and others. The work takes place within a stable, regular frame: the same days, the same times, from one to several times a week. We decide the number of sessions together. This is not a formality — regularity is what allows the process to be trusted and what makes it possible to look at what happens between sessions.
I practise in the Kleinian tradition under the supervision of experienced psychoanalytic psychotherapists. I completed a four-year training at the Hanna Segal Institute of Psychoanalytic Studies in Warsaw.
