| Psychoanalytic psychotherapy cannot be described as a cure in the sense of having an operation or taking medicine for a physical illness. Originally psychoanalysis was known as the ‘talking cure’, because it helped people who were very anxious or depressed to overcome their difficulties through a technique called free association, where patients said the first thing that came into their mind.
Things have moved on a bit since then and therapists trained in this way of working want to help you to feel emotionally well adjusted, internally more relaxed and less anxious and able to relate to yourself and other people in a creative, understanding and compassionate way.
This could be said to be a cure of sorts, but it is a cure that is arrived at through you and your therapist working through your issues and understanding them better, rather than removing them or pretending that you will never remember or experience emotional pain or upset again. The latter is not realistic approach, as your mind will hold on to and remember painful experiences.
In life, there will always be suffering and losses as well as pleasure and gains. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy helps you to understand your way of being in the world and how it affects the way you feel about yourself and other people and its aim it to help you develop a more fulfilling, creative, emotionally reflective rather than emotionally reactive life.
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