Analytical Counselling and Psychotherapy
Analytical psychotherapy is interested not only in the difficulties that bring someone to therapy, but also in what may lie beneath them. Rather than simply trying to reduce a symptom or cover over a problem, the aim is to become curious about the deeper patterns, experiences and feelings that may be contributing to it.
I sometimes use the image of a sticking plaster: it can be helpful to attend to what is happening on the surface, but analytical psychotherapy also asks what might be underneath the wound and what has made it difficult to heal.
What lies beneath the surface
People are complex, and not everything that influences us is available to conscious awareness. I find the metaphor of an iceberg useful here. The small part visible above the water can represent what we consciously know about ourselves, while the much larger part beneath the surface represents thoughts, feelings, memories and patterns that may operate outside our immediate awareness.
This does not mean that everything that troubles us has a single hidden cause. Rather, analytical psychotherapy creates a space in which we can begin to notice recurring patterns, emotional reactions and ways of relating that may previously have been difficult to understand.
Making sense of experience
At times, painful feelings and experiences can be difficult to think about or integrate. They may instead be experienced indirectly, through anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, repeated patterns or a general sense that something does not feel right.
Analytical psychotherapy offers an opportunity to explore these experiences gradually and to put words and meaning around what may initially feel confusing or overwhelming. An important part of the work is developing the capacity to bear, contain and understand feelings that may otherwise feel too difficult to experience or think about. Over time, what once felt like one undifferentiated mass can begin to be understood in more manageable and meaningful parts.
The aim is not simply to gain intellectual insight, but to develop a deeper understanding of your own emotional life, relationships and inner world. This can be an arduous process at times, but it can also lead to greater freedom, choice and a stronger sense of personal meaning.
For more about the way I think and work, you can visit my blog page, where I have written a number of articles exploring analytical psychotherapy and emotional life.
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
– Carl Jung