People often want to know what to expect when entering therapy. This seems like a reasonable request, particularly in the light of many legal requirements imposed upon psychotherapy in the name of ‘informed consent’ and ‘consumer satisfaction.’
It is, however, misleading to pretend that what lies ahead in analysis is predictable, if only for the obvious fact that psychotherapists and counselors are neither mind readers nor fortune tellers, though some may pose as such.
What lies behind your issues cannot be known in advance of listening to what you have to say and interpreting what you reveal.
Bearing that in mind, psychAmerica recognizes a not uncommon trajectory of analyses; a theme upon which most work plays a variation.
Most analyses comprise ‘phases’ that may be characterized as follows:
INITIAL CONSULTATION
Our detour through your mind begins with an invitation for you to speak in a way you may never have spoken before; without censorship.
This is not an invitation for which you are required to prepare, or one for which any preparation is actually possible. It is not a speaking in which you must account for what you say, or explain yourself. Rather, it is an invitation to experience saying what crosses your mind with as little editing as possible and as much freedom as is tolerable.
At this session I will offer several provocative reflections regarding your words such that we can see what you make of interpretation and thereby gain some insight into how you might take up the invitation for ongoing work.
This is not an invitation for which you are required to prepare, or one for which any preparation is actually possible. It is not a speaking in which you must account for what you say, or explain yourself. Rather, it is an invitation to experience saying what crosses your mind with as little editing as possible and as much freedom as is tolerable.
At this session I will offer several provocative reflections regarding your words such that we can see what you make of interpretation and thereby gain some insight into how you might take up the invitation for ongoing work.
LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS
Over the initial sessions you and I will think about how best to proceed. This includes the time, length and frequency of sessions and a sustainable fee.
We will also agree to the terms for a working agreement, something ethically and legally necessary that provides a container for the work ahead.
You can read more about these considerations in the FAQ section.
(DIS)ORIENTATION
Once the container of a working agreement has been established, preliminary sessions usually last up to a year.
This period is characterized by an opening up of questions where certainty once ruled, on the understanding that such certainty has acted as an increasingly restrictive defense. It is what your coping mechanisms are meant to defend, and against what they are meant to defend, that is of crucial interest.
This questioning can feel unnerving and disorienting, yet it is essential for an orientation to fruitful work. You might think of it as a tilling of the field, or an initial site excavation that reveals something of the ground to be (dis)covered.
WORKING THROUGH
The various processes of repeating, remembering and working through are complex and can seem circuitous, yet there is no alternative to this labor of love; a careful consideration of the words you present spontaneously in your sessions.
I will invite you to recall memories and dreams in sessions, speaking to and of them as if in the present, and allowing yourself the freedom to detour around associations, thoughts and memories that occur spontaneously, no matter how unconnected these might initially seem.
None of your words are irrelevant, and indeed, that which you consider irrelevant may well prove to be a key to a recognition that has to date been elusive.
As Umberto Echo says at the opening of his novel 'Foucault's Pendulum'; Repetition are magic keys.
CHANGE
There is no avoiding nor predicting the evolution of change as a result of your working through. Such change, however, may not be that which you had envisioned.
Rather, this change is often appears chaotic and more profound than may have previously considered possible, a sea change that can disturb with its choppy waters.
As such tidal shifts occurs, questions of an even more fundamental nature may surface or be washed up, thus forming a cycle of time and tide through which we must sift.
UnENDINGS
We undergo few absolute endings in life; arguably only one. While some transitions may seem permanent, if we acknowledge that we live a life of reminiscence, then what is ever truly lost and gone?
And if we acknowldge that there is no fixed points in our relativistic lives, then what is ever truly certain?
Clients come along for a wide variety of reasons and periods, from a few months to many years, coming every weekday to occasional sessions now and then. Some conclude for a moment and may not feel a need to return, many return after various periods ranging from several months to many years.
Stopping attending sessions may not mark the end of a process which in any case continues in between sessions without the literal presence of your therapist.
You are free to 'end' at any time. And free to return when you are ready.
It is important to recognize that this is but one way of characterizing the tempi and pitch analysis, and you may find that other metaphors portray more aptly your own analytic detour.
It is also important to recognize that the melodies of analysis are not linear, that work does not proceed along a straight line, but is better regarded as a cycle or spiral, one by which issues are revisited much like detours, or retours, and that such destinations weave highly individual and complex counterpoints.