How I work

I work within the psychodynamic (psychoanalytic) approach. This means that we do not simply remove a symptom — together we come to understand what lies behind it. This approach offers not a quick relief that lasts a day or two, but lasting change that stays with you.

I also offer short-term counselling focused on a specific problem. This format helps you see a situation more clearly and understand your next steps. Sometimes the outcome of such work is a referral to a medical specialist (for example, a neurologist or psychiatrist) when there is a deeper issue that requires a comprehensive approach. This happens when I see that your situation lies beyond my area of competence.

I also work as a diagnostician within the psychodynamic approach. After our initial introductory sessions, I may also offer mindfulness, coaching and relaxation sessions.

Working with a psychologist is always an interaction — a contribution from two people: the psychologist and the client.

What I work with

• depressive and anxious states, low mood;
• panic attacks and panic states;
• the consequences of psychological trauma;
• experiences of loss and grief;
• chronic stress and burnout;
• difficulties in family and close relationships;
• neurotic states and character traits that get in the way of living;
• difficulty determining your future, profession or direction;
• the psychological aspects of non-medical difficulties with conception and pregnancy;
• and other difficulties that are often hard to name — when it seems that “everything is fine,” yet life feels flat and without taste.

Format

The format depends on your request: from short, focused work on a specific situation to a longer process if you want to explore things more deeply. The first few meetings are for getting to know each other: we discuss what troubles you and decide whether we are a good fit for further work.

Examples from practice

The stories below are heavily altered, composite portraits in which no individual person can be recognised — artistic images used to describe situations. Everything you bring into the consulting room is confidential. Your information is never shared, published or disclosed to anyone. This is a fundamental principle of my work.

Many years ago a teenage girl came to my practice. She seemed “frozen”; she was drawn to lifeless things, and her parents were worried. In our sessions we spoke about her images and fantasies — and those fantasies were icy, lifeless and grey. I could only guess what had frozen the girl inside so, what had been so unbearable that she had to resort to such a way of handling her feelings. Much later, in one of her fantasies, the girl was wandering in the dark and suddenly heard the murmur of a stream. With her eyes closed, inside her fantasy, she followed that sound — and came out into a real forest, where the earth was warm and alive and the water was flowing, still very cold, but no longer frozen. And I felt that we had reached the place in her soul where life was no longer like a block of ice. The girl's life and her interests changed.

A distressed man brought his wife to my practice; she had attempted to take her own life several times. The children had grown up and she had lost her sense of meaning. A few weeks later, when the short-term counselling ended, she was still in a depressed state. But a few months later she came to the practice with a bouquet of flowers from her own garden — grateful for the support she had received. She spoke of the extraordinary satisfaction of discovering that her life could be filled with her own meaning. She was smiling and radiant. Moments like these make a psychologist's work meaningful.

Another case concerns work with children. A colleague, a psychiatrist, referred a little girl to me because she was not speaking at the age of 6. There was a suspicion of intellectual disability, and the child was about to be sent to a special institution. In our sessions we played with sand and toys. The girl actively expressed her attitude through sounds, but not words. The psychodynamic, psychoanalytic approach makes it possible to see the dynamics of what a child “brings” into the room emotionally. Three weeks later, in one of the sessions, the girl turned to me with a full sentence. She had begun to speak. A few months later she went to school together with her peers.

Of course, as in any work, there are very difficult cases where it is hard for parents to cope and hard to believe that a good outcome is possible. Often parents need to enter their own therapy alongside the child, so that the family system that contributes to the child's difficulties can be “repaired” at every level.